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Australian arist Justine Cooper throws herself behind a drug-and-disorder parody show called Havidol: When More is Not Enough.
Havidol is for sufferers of Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD), or people who suffer from worry about life, tension, fatigue, aging, or stress. And we're not too sure how Havidol can help, but it does promise to increase your inclination to do spontaneous and exciting things - like jump off cliffs without restraints.
One testimonial reports, "I felt confident in myself and my relationships. I exercised regularly. I slept quietly through every night and awoke each morning feeling refreshed and ready to start a new day. I now know I had a treatable disorder." Thankfully for those in the dark, marketing for Havidol ain't shy - TV, print, outdoor and interactive work are accounted for, and we dig the Havidol merch. If only Zoloft made hoodies this hot.
Check out the exhibition info for Justine's show.
Imaginary disorders are stacking up as a wrist-slap to big pharma, but we wonder which will actually cross over into "Oh fuck, I really need help" land. Major drug companies, marketing mavens in their own right despite all the jokes we make about them, are notoriously clever like that. You know how it is: things start out as a joke, then spiral into serious real fast, and all of a sudden everybody's on Xanax.
CoolzOr features a very interesting guerrilla outdoor effort by Oklahoma Truck Supply which placed a mock up of an 18-wheeler vertically in the middle of a field which, or course, makes it stand out like a bald Britney. Yes, it's stunt marketing but, to us, it works. If you have a field and a spare 18-wheeler (or a mock up of such), why not turn it into a promotion. And yea, yea, yea, before you jump all over us telling us this sort of thing's been done before, we offer this thought. If we only wrote about new stuff, guess what? There wouldn't be anything to write about because, as you well know, it's all been done before. Thankfully, some re-hashed ideas are better than others which, again, thankfully, gives us something to write about.
Stardust Studios enlists the magic stylistics of Nathan Reifke to add colour to their Signature Series IDs, inspired by limited edition signature skateboard decks starting in 2004. The first 15 have generated accolades from both artists and enthusiasts of unsanctioned - er, action sports.
The Fuel TV release of Number 16, which aired in December, is a collabo with design director Neil Tsai and animators Kevin Ferrara and Daisuke Yamazaki. The spot starts with a natural birth - the sprouting of a plant - and evolves into man-made machinery.
"This piece tries to portray the universe as a literal giant machine and the subsequent relationships of its parts," Reifke says. "My hope was to call to mind that we tend to be very anthropocentric without much regard for the other inhabitants of this planet. [...] My goal is that people get lost in [this piece] like a daydream, and that for just a second they will feel a sense of wonder. That sense of wonder is what makes us ask questions and, ultimately, what leads us to explore this amazing place."
How dreamy. We don't know much about art, but we do know pretty, and this is certainly that. Will it appeal to civilian skaters? We're not sure. It probably depends on if they're stoned or not.
AdPunch points us to a commercial for the Danish Road Safety Council from last year which replays backwards what seems to be a real accident. Everything from the flying glass, exploding airbag and facial expressions are caught as the women in the accident narrates the commercial wishing she'd driven a bit slower, could turn back time and apologizes to the apparent death of a young couple she caused. Powerful stuff.
There's an even more shocking version of the campaign here (on DailyMotion which is like the world's slowest video site, unfortunately) in which a man hits a boy on a bike and he ends up going through the windshield. The campaign was created by Locomotion in Denmark. We'd love to know how this campaign was shot and if, in fact, these are actual accidents shot backwards.
Online community Stardoll unrolls a virtual red carpet for the Academy Awards. For the teeny bopper demo (or girls at heart like Mariah), Stardoll is a candy-sweet space for creating Oscars-themed scenes with - wait for it - virtual paparazzi and Joan Rivers avatars. It ain't the Oscars without invasive camera angles and loud blondes straddling perpetual midlife crises so we smile upon the stab at authenticity.
"We hope to usher in a new generation of kids who want to try their hand at fashion in a way that is fun, creative and a bit friendlier than an internship at Vogue," says CEO Mattias Miksche. After seeing The Devil Wears Prada, we find this noble indeed.
In addition to playing with Oscar nominee avatars and making adamant suggestions about who should win (most favor Kate over Penelope!), girls make their own avatars and craft campaigns to become the next Stardoll cover girl, an honour doled out by the community.
Stardoll stikes us as an awesome resource. While we'd like to suggest it as such, the imagined execution (admen trolling the Pretty in Pink section) is not cute. Resist the urge to channel dormant XX chromosomes. We're sure you know a little girl you can foist this job upon.
Apparently, there are companies solely devoted to the care of bald heads. Who knew? Headblade is one such company and couldn't pass up the opportunity to leverage Britney's recent head shaving event into some of their own publicity. The company put together a video called Top Ten Reasons Britney Shaved Her Head in which random fitness pros, sports figures and some Swedish Chick offer up reasons why Britney may have offed her locks. The number one reason? Let's just say it has to do with matching styles.
Seemingly unassociated with any official Playboy promotion, Pool Boys at the Mansion is a site created by three guys Sam Rush and two other guys referred to as Denman and The Swede. The sole purpose of the site is to get the attention of Playboy and get hired as pool boys at the Mansion. Prior to setting up the site, they contacted Playboy through normal channels and were told, "pool boy positions at the Mansion, however, are likely to go only to trusted referrals."
Undeterred, the three launched Pool Boys at the Mansion. A quick Whois search confirms (well, as much as Whois can which isn't saying much) no official association with Playboy. Let's hope this is, in fact, the case, and not another sad attempt by a corporate entity to get jiggy with the bloggy thing. Good luck, guys.
It was only a matter of time before Wrigley's Candystand, whose candy-tagged games get progressively better, would start testing waters in real gamer territory.
Candystand and Wii just joined forces in a bizarre cross-branding where Wii web games are peddled on Candystand and Candystand is totally accessible through the Wii browser.
The relationship isn't exactly low-key - within 24 hours of launching on Wii's Internet Channel, Wii.Candystand.com drew 6000 visitors and a ton of positive reviews. That is, according to Scott Tannen, Wrigley's director of global digital marketing.
This is the first branded site to link to the Wii browser, which will definitely get competitors sniffing at the door to be next in line. Candystand's content offerings are also formatted for television instead of computer monitors.
Kudos to Wrigley for creating a series of branded offerings that seem able to stand alone in gaming world. It hasn't been an easy trek, considering Candystand was first introduced in '97 - building this kind of recognition takes time. Just ask Target.
We still harbor doubts that our Socom buddies would be deeply impressed to hear we destroy the competition on Altoids Sheep, though.
Tim Hardaway chases his recent anti-gay remarks with an apology that's feeble at best. Meanwhile gay comedian and activist George Takei makes a judicious retort, assuring the paranoid Tim he's not only liked by gays; he's liked by gays.
An apt response. There's even a bit of rubbing, and who can do without maniacal laughter?
We don't have confirmation that this is a sanctioned ESPN commercial but we don't really care. It's funny. And that's all that really matters. We think we may have seen this before too so go easy with those "Dude, this shit is old" emails. That, or we've seen so many ads they all look the same.
How may times have you told someone they're talking out of their ass? Well, the guy in this ESPN News spot gets so much information from ESPN that he spews sports news out of his ass. You have to admit, that "problem" is a lot less smelly that what usually comes out of your ass.
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