In an intersection between the surreal story-telling band The Decemberists and Napoleon Dynamite, Microsoft uses Clearification to promote Vista. This is a subtly witty bio-site about a guy suffering from HANDTOSS, or Hyper-Achiever with No Direction and Tendency to Overcomplicate Situations Syndrome.
The campaign was created by McCann and Mekanism. The HANDTOSS victim is comedian Demetri Martin. We never thought we'd say this about any one of Microsoft's myriad attempts to de-stodge, but we dig it. Then again we'd love anybody who covertly reveals his favourite subject in school "involved karate and ... crying."
We could listen to this guy spout neuroses in his mellow little voice for hours. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
If you ever find yourself watching some obscure local TV station late at night in your hotel room while on some lame business trip in some lame city with your lame co-workers to pitch some lame client some lame new work your agency's done for them and a commercial like this one comes on, you just might quit your job immediately and enroll at The Viral Learning Center. Yes, you too can become a viral video expert.
At the Learning Center, you'll learn important viral video tactics such as filming yourself sitting at your desk, the art of falling, hurting animals, using animals to hurt people, working with excrement and vomit and "many more." This hilarious DRTV spoof takes whacks at both the DRTV genre and viral video itself all to promote, yes, a website that's all about viral video called Ziddio. It's one of those "we pay you for your video" site. Kind of like Revver with wit. American Copywriter points.
You don't have to understand French to understand the message conveyed in this PSA about violence against women. The kicker of the message is a literal one and a powerful message that children do take after the examples their parents set for them. Young & Rubicam France created the spot.
Portland-Based Bent Image Lab gets innovative and uses a human face to sex up a stop motion character who goes from sweetheart to siren in this 60-second ad for Lux Provocateur soap and agency Santo Argentina (Spanish version here). Executive Producer Ray Di Carlo explains, "It was just a really good way to solve a problem I see in some stop motion puppets --a lack of soul."
Technical breakthroughs aside, the content is a far cry from Wallace and Grommett. After a forest bath with some black Lux soap the id-operative heroine makes the antlers of deer grow in addition to turning up mustaches on her former village brothers. And what in hell is going on with the whip-wielding gnome-looking thing? - Contributed by Angela Natividad
AdFreak's David Kiefabr says, after much searching, he's found his favorite commercial. After viewing it, we just might have to agree. You know all those ads that feature women just because they are eye candy for men? This one cements that notion brilliantly.
Adrants reader John Brock tells us Porsche owners can now name their Porsche 911 models. Rather than the model insignia on the back of the vehicle, the owners name or any word they choose will now appear in the same Porsche typeface ans the model name did. Talk about handing your band over to the people. Not all brands can get away with this but an established, high-end brand like Porsche certainly can. Nice move.
UPDATE: Apparently, Porsche is not behind this rather an enterprising person in he Netherlands. We'd still like to see Porsche embrace this somehow rather than kill it.
Brilliantly illustrating the unseen horrors of abuse against women, this commercial from Amnesty International's Stop Violence Against Women graphically drives home the point most abuse is hidden from plain site or simply ignored with both abuser and abused in the shadows, invisible to friends, family and co-workers. The ad is a wake up call asking us to be more aware of the potential signs of abuse because it's happening everyday right under our noses.
The work was created by Cake and is a follow up to their initial Amnesty International work on the topic called One Man Fight.
Remember the sandbox? In the sandbox it was a big deal to find out who spit further and who could destroy who at mercy. In business things aren't so different.
With the creative help of McKinney in Durham, NC, CEO Tom Tiller of Polaris challenged the CEOs of his industry competitors to an ATV duel. The object was to find out who's better at building ATVs. Polaris won by forfeit, meaning everybody else bitched out (3 declined, 3 acted too cool to answer).
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Dishing up iRobot and Bicentennial Man robot-wants-to-be-human sentiment, this Johnnie Walker commercial tells us, from the perspective of a robot who wants to be human, to keep walking which, collectively as a species, grants us immortality in manner much different than that of a robot. As long as we don't drink too much while on that quest for immortality.
In what could be a masterful viral approach to growing a business that goes far beyond viral marketing, Microsoft is embedding viral expansion into its new iPod competitor, Zune. Users of the Zune MP3 player can send songs to friends over the devices Wifi who have three days to listen to them before they disable. If the recipient of the song decides to buy the song within the three day period, the sender of the song will receive a portion of the song's purchase price in the form of credits to be used towards purchasing music and other items from the Zune Marketplace.
Currently, it's a rumor and it would certainly be difficult to topple iPod from its reigning position but the approach is indicative of what many brands should be doing to grow their business beyond just traditional advertising tonnage. And yea, yea, yea, the whole referral thing has been done since cavemen traded rocks but this is high profile and it will be intresting to see if it works.
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