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Ray Del Savio has launched a weblog in an effort to drum up support for getting the word "concept" added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as a verb. Of course, all of us in the business who've been using the word to describe the act of coming up with an overall ad or campaign idea have been using the word as a verb forever. Savio's blog cites the Dictionary currently only recognizes the word as a noun and adjective.
The blog links to a petition that asks everyone to get behind its proposed addition to the Merriam-Webster listing of the word "concept." The proposed addition is al follows:
to con cept (knspt) - co cepted (knspt-ed) - con cept-ing (knspt-ing)
v.
1. A process whereby ideas are generated for the purpose of creatively solving a problem: "The team set aside some time for concepting in order to flush out some plausible directions."
There are 56 signatures so far. We're all for it. What about you?
Animal Magazine, the yardstick by which all New York culture is measured, has re-launched its website blog-style. Already, Animal's got high-jacked Facebook pictures of Moby hanging with a bunch of college hotties, a nod to Chelsea's apparent fixation with the male appendage and one of New York's finest mouthing off as only the finest can.
No doubt there are a multitude of political angles to Cape Wind's desire to place a bunch of giant windmills off the coast of Cape Cod the generate energy but this video from Greenpeace showing Senator Ted Kennedy paying whakamole with the windmills because they might alter the pristine view he has from his Hyannis mansion is, well, just funny. Apparently, Kennedy has buried an amendment into a Coast Guard bill that, if approved, would kill the Cape Wind project.
To call attention to pockpocketing, Brussels Airlines resorted to a sort of anti-pickpocketing campaign and placed fake, rubber hands inside un-attended bags. Aside from the fact most people would freak out and scream if they came back to their bag and found a hand inside, we're guessing airport security wouldn't be too happy with this marketing scheme. Not to mention the possibility of those inserting the hands accidentally finding themselves faced with a bag full of explosives or some other nasty find. Still, we have to admit this is very effective at getting attention. LG&F came up with the idea.
Here's an interesting way to promote the notion the you'd better hang on tight when driving the Volkswagen Turbo Beetle. This subway hanger also gives nod the the hanger's that used to (and maybe still do) hang from the ceiling of the original Beetle. They sure did come in handy when those 40 horses kicked in as Dad gunned it up the street on the way home from the hardware store in those heady days before that thing called Home Depot existed.
We've seen all manner of tricked out shopping bags from bags that make it look like you are carrying a gun to bags that place your hand inside a mouth to bags that make it look like you're being hung from your hair. Now, we have a bag that, when properly carried, makes it look like you're walking down the street in your underwear. We're not sure who the advertiser is but we're sure the bag's visual is far too distracting for anyone to notice. OK, it's Blush.
As we mentioned back in January, Pirelli would be releasing a BMW Films-style long form commercial. Well, it's out. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring John Malkovich and Naomi Campbell, it's got everything you'd expect from a Hollywood-created long form commercial: pretentiousness, overly dark and moody lighting, slowly mounting tension, credits that roll almost as long as the film itself and even humor. In the film, Malkovich must excorcize demon Naomi Campbell out of a suffering car that has tires that won't stop squealing and just aren't up to the job of controlling the car's devilish powers.
If you can keep yourself from laughing while Malkovich throws water at the devil-car while screaming "the power of Christ compels you" Exorcist-style only to have the car nonchalantly cast the holy water off with its windshield wipers, you'll appreciate the final scene in which Malkovich solves the cars problems by...well...just watch it. The entire film, whether it sells any tires or not, supports and aligns perfectly with the Pirelli tagline, "Power is nothing without control." You can view the film here.
To promote the launch of the American Dad DVD, Fuel Industries, for Fox Home Video, has created an advergame that pits American Dad against Family Guy Kung Fu-style. Visitors can play as six characters (Peter, Lois and Stewie from Family Guy, Stan, Klaus and Roger from American Dad) with two more to be introduced soon. Special moves include Peter lighting his farts on fire and vomitting, Lois decaptitating people, and Roger bitch-slaps people. Also, there are nine different playing environments. The game boss is Ryu from Street Fighter 2. Soon he'll become one of the fighting characters as well. While we suck at gaming, we still like the tons of different ways you can play this game and the sheer weirdness of it.
This isn't really new but it's worth noting The Weinstein Company, formed last October by Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, has embraced the whole social media/online video thing and is promoting its movies on YouTube. Deep Focus handles the account. Up now are two trailers for Lucky Number Slevin, a trailer for Clerks II and, just added, a clip that includes the first eight minutes of Lucky Number Slevin. There's no need to rely on a studio website or movie trailers in physical theaters when you can get your trailer hundreds of thousand of additional people as in the case of Clerks II which has, to date, been viewed 217,505 times. Of course just one showing of one trailer on one day across, say, 2000 theaters with 150 theater-goers gets 300,000 views but hey, they're getting 217,505 more views then they might have had they not posted the trailer on YouTube.
Carat Fusion's John Szczur tells us, "One of the most challenging holes on the PGA Tour, the 17th hole at the Wachovia Championship held at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, NC. Carat Fusion developed this flash game to promote Wachovia's sponsorship of the annual tournament as well as create a viral marketing buzz for the Wachovia brand." We tried it and aceived par. Not bad, if we say so ourselves. Give a whirl.
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