Yes, it's happening as we said it would from the start. MySpace users are complaining about the proliferation of corporate profiles created by marketers eager to tap into the 100 million people on MySpace. Of corporate profiles on MySpace, one person tells MediaPost, "Frankly, I think that's going too far." Frankly, we agree. While for a marketer, it's impossible to ignore the allure of 100 million people, the proliferation of advertising on MySpace is akin to Coke placing it's logo behind the cross in churches across the country. The two just don't go together.
You've got to wonder what those media buyers are thinking when they place and write Goofle AdWords ad. Take, for example, this ad that appears on a Fox Interactive exec's Linked in page that promotes "Surviving Katrina," a Discovery Channel documentary. The headline for the ad? Comedy. Yes, Katrina was fucking hilarious don't you think? Click the thumbnail to see the humor.
Certainly this practice is not a new one but one Minneapolis Adrants reader took note of the new agency Pocket Hercules' use of its founders work done while they were at Carmichael Lynch and wrote, "You didn't hear it from me. (Minneapolis is a small town) You should look at the site of the agency started by super star creatives from Carmichael Lynch. pockethercules.com Their marketing strategy is " little agency vs. big holding company agency." But then look at the work they have on the site. It's all Carmichael Lynch work. (GREAT CL work) Now, I'm no lawyer, but isn't it illegal to use another shop's work even if you worked there? Anyway, I thought it was ironic."
We don't think it's illegal and we're sure someone will tell us if it is but what agency on the planet hasn't done this before?
That new mirror pic ad babe, Ariel, isn't too pleased with Chevrolet's second foray into the whole consumer generated media thing. oh wait. Sorry. She doesn't like being called an ad babe. Besides, that's rude and inconsiderate. WTF were we to think. Our most sincere aplogies, Ariel. Anyway, enough with our Neanderthal mentality. Let's talk about Chevy.
Chevy's new promotion, called reduceuruse, is, we guess, a follow up to its Chevy Tahoe roll-your-own commercial thing which through a dumb-ish commercial featuring a guy with a bucket on his head getting smacked by baseballs launched from a pitching machine, asks people to submit a video showing what they'd do with all the time they'd gain by using E85 fuel. As far as we know, E85 doesn't magically appear in one's gas tanked and still has to be pumped so we're not sure where all this saved time is coming from. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. Perhaps someone can enlighten Chevrolet too. The reduceuruse site doesn't exactly do a great job explaining what it wants. Oh, and the Alternative Fuels link takes you to a page that features the much crapped on Tahoe. Perhaps they could have featured a different vehicle. After all, GM says E85 fuel works in a lot more vehicles than the Tahoe. And what's up with that freakishly odd dancing couple?
Our long time buddy Tony Pierce, now writing over at the LAist, has caught yet another studio in yet another fake quote promotional stunt. This time, it's for the movie Accepted and the critic in question is Paul Fischer. Who? Exactly. These positive quote manufacturers do their thing to hype horrible movies because no respectable film critic would bother touching these movies. You can check out Tony's stop motion TiVo analysis of the whole thing here.
If you happen to work as a grocery or retail store clerk you might find yourself checking into a hospital for dizziness or a mental institution for insanity all caused by being forced to revolving ads on the conveyor belt in front of you. In what is certainly one of the more blatantly disgusting forms of ad creep, EnVision Marketing Group, which patented the idea, is rolling out ads on the conveyor belts of 52 Cincinnati-based Kroger grocery stores.
Like a kid gleefully plastering every square inch of his bedroom wall with posters of Kelli Garner, EnVision CEO Frank Cox gushed, "Conveyor belts have never been on anybody's radar screen for marketing. But a store with eight to 10 checkout lanes, well, you're talking about 100 square feet of wasted ad real estate." Indeed. But what about all that food covering up the ads, Mr. Cox? Perhaps Cox should start calling hospitals to place ads on the ceilings of patient's room. Now there's a captive audience.
Watching these new spots for Starz just reminds us there must be a lot of people in this business with an apparent inferiority complex. That's the only conclusion we can make after seeing so many ads that feature blithering idiots for the sole purpose of making the rest of us feel better/cooler/smarter/hotter. Does is really require an idiot to sell everything? Are we so insecure we need to see dumb people just to make us feel better? Please. Enlighten us. See yet another dufus in action here and here for Starz.
While we don't know for certain if this ad was served using contextual technology, Animal's Bucky Turco informs us of an odd ad placement for the upcoming Oliver Stone movie, World Trade Center. It appeared smack in the middle of a Yahoo story about the thwarting of a major UK aircraft bomb plot. Not to belittle the freakishly horrific nightmare this could have become, we still feel it's our duty to point out contextual fuckery at its finest.
We were going to tell you to check out this Snakes on a Plane trailer spoof called Snakes on Claire Danes but it's so awful., we're not going to. Oh wait. The movie's crap so any spoof would have to be crap, too, right? Besides, the whole thing is a cheesy promotion for this site called SecretSauce.tv.
We're thinking "Show Me" state, Missouri, didn't quite have in mind what the rest of us take away after reading this billboard which carries the headline, "The show-me your nuts state."
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@adrants
@stevehall
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