Yahoo to Microsoft: no, you can't have the company, and no, you can't buy our search, either. This follows FOUR MONTHS of hardcore media drama between the two of them. Here's a word from stock market angryman Carl Icahn (who, btw, is trying to oust Y!'s board):
In my opinion it will be extremely difficult for Microsoft or any other companies to trust, work with and negotiate with a company that would go to these lengths [to scuffle a deal].
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To promote its MSN toolbar -- "Jet fuel for procrastinators!" -- Microsoft launched Start Procrastinating. You can either upload videos of yourself, flicking rubber bands around while putting off your creative brief, or watch three really stupid videos of a couple of dudes surf balling, folding shirts and sharpshooting.
Actually, the surf balling video's all right.
Start Procrastinating's no Clearification, which was appealing but a promotional flop for Microsoft. And avid procrastinators download StumbleUpon, not MSN. Sorry, champs.
Speaking of StumbleUpon, look what it found me! Free range workers. Yum.
Apparently a thing called the Mac Monkey needs freeing. (He's "starved of creative stimulation." Guess he hasn't discovered his own poo yet. Also, why does he have people fingers?)
Intended to increase subscriptions to Creative Review Magazine, Free the Mac Monkey was conceived by London-based STEEL, which sought to distract us from calling foul ("SUBSERVIENT CHICKEN RIP-OFF!") with the tasteful inclusion of early Steve Jobs wall art. And they almost succeeded. Well ... no, not really.
I saw this graphic on the Glam Media website today. It was part of a rolling series of images intended to give advertisers a sense of the Glam audience.
Okay, Glam. It's one thing to seduce media folk with deceptive slideshow pictures of models. But a woman putting on makeup while in transit -- and on a moped, no less? (See Vespa mirrors.) That's not just a vapid lifestyle statement; it's stupid and dangerous.
< sarcasm > Way to go, you sassy women's network, you. < / sarcasm >
Fun fact: Glam Media was ranked the #1 online women's network last year.
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.
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.
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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.
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Uh...right. No one was fooled the first time and no one will be fooled the second time. Everyone knows the lawyers, handlers and insurance companies behind superstars such as Kobe Bryant would never allow a person of Bryant's stature and worth to engage in stunts such as jumping over a moving Aston Martin or performing a jump shot over a pool full of live snakes. It's just not going to happen.
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Tonight Verizon debuts this spot for its "This is FiOS; This is Big" campaign.
Put together by McCann Erikson, New York, it depicts Celtics player Kevin Garnett as a guy who can poke fun at his own rich-ass, gratuitous-technology-loving self.
Yeah. It's the "I'm human too! Now let me image-bomb you with everything you can't afford" shtick.
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Animation studio th1ng helped create this ad for NBCU's PictureBox, a subscription film service. Tagline: "Movies full of emotion. Enjoy the ride." I missed the whole "emotion" vibe, but come to think of it, I did see Russell Crowe looking ragey.
Actually, that's not new.
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