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'They'll Block Out the Sun ... and Hell Follows Them.'

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I saw this ad for Resistance 2 last night while watching Fringe. Maybe it was the context, or the very large screen, but I found it deliciously chilling.

Product footage and 'net research reveals it's just another shooter game with an old premise: mankind versus an alien race.

Meh. How very Stargate SG-1, circa '98.

Somehow I thought Resistance 2 would be richer, like Heroes before everybody had a power, or like Fringe, which has me stuck on genetic manipulation, corporate conspiracies and string theory.

Where's my MMOG?

by Angela Natividad    Oct-22-08   Comments (2)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Commercials, Games, Good, Promotions, Television

Crumpler Tries its Hand with Toilet Paper Advertising

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For the record, we think Crumpler's* Paint By Numbers toilet paper rolls -- in a stall near you! -- are totally rad. (Read the colour key!)

With that said, the effort lit a spark in us that ignites every time we see yet another brand trying to do something with toilet paper. Like the occasional outbreak of insanity, every few months somebody pitches us with some TP-oriented thing that they're sure will bring ruminations of their genius to public stalls everywhere. See examples one and two.

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by Angela Natividad    Oct-22-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Opinion, Strange

Trojan Asks Everyone to Evolve, Realize Kids Have Sex

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The girl featured in this Trojan Evolve One Evolve All Community video sums up the teen sex/sex education problem quite well when she says, "What really gets me...is that health care covers Viagra but they can't cover birth control or teach about effective birth control."

Trojan aims to change that with its Evolve One, Evolve All community site on which videos from the community and well know artists point out the problems and offer solutions to what Colangelo (Trojan's agency) Chief Digital Officer Craig Lambert calls "a terrible, epidemic problem."

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by Steve Hall    Oct-22-08   Comments (5)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Creative Commentary, Good, Online, Opinion, Video

Macs Fight PCs Evil Dead-Style

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Those Mac vs. PC ads? Tame in comparison to this grudge match between Mac and PC advocates created by Canada's Accident Factory. Cool. Very, very cool. Very very graphic. Very, very gross. Very, very awesome. The ending, though, is the best. It illustrates the absolute silliness and irrelevance of the Mac vs. PC wars.

by Steve Hall    Oct-22-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Video

Marriage Proposal Goes Horribly Wrong, Insurance Sold

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A while back when I was actually creating advertising rather than shamelessly trashing it, we held a video contest for a jeweler and asked people to send in videos of their marriage proposals. We picked the best, worst, strangest, funniest, etc. and give them a big discount at the jeweler. I know...giving a discount after the ring's been brought and the proposal's been made is, to say the least, illogical. Then again, this is advertising. More likely, I can't remember the details and the promotion was something completely different that how I remember it.

Anyway...here's yet another in the long line of marriage proposal gaffes that offer never ending hilarity. It's for Aviva Insurance (not even a jeweler!) and was created by Taxi Toronto.

by Steve Hall    Oct-22-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Commercials, Good, Strange

Meijer Brings Headless Horseman to Waking Life

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Last Friday a headless horseman galloped eerily across Chicago's building facades. The night marauder rode for four hours between the Loop and Wrigleyville.

Who woke him up? Meijer, which gave people a chance to win $1000 if they texted the company directly upon seeing the apparition. Flyers were distributed to prime people for the sighting; and whenever the van projecting the Horseman stopped or idled in traffic, the horse would rear its hind legs and flash the message: text Meijer for a grand.

A purported several hundred texts arrived over the course of the four-hour campaign. Dubbing it a success, the street team plans to repeat the work this Friday in Cincinnati.

by Angela Natividad    Oct-22-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Promotions

Fortify's Golden Server Offers Cups Full of Witty Geekisms

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Having worked in the segment for quite some time, I can attest to the boredom of working on business to business ad campaigns. There's only so much speed and feed bullshit you can take before your head explodes...or you go out and hire a big breasted floozy, a dude in a tuxedo and layer on an endless supply of metaphors and double entendres.

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by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Games, Good, Online, Racy

Who Knew Libraries Made Babies, Assisted Ascension of Everest

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Here's a series of ads for The Alberta Library which tells us just how powerful informative and motivational books can be. Aiming to show just how much influence a book can have on a person's life, both positively and negatively, four scenarios are played out to humorous effect.

Created by Rethink Vancouver and produced by Holiday Film, the commercial's directors commented on the work, saying, "We were both attracted to this job because neither of us can read, and we thought this would be a good excuse to go into a library for the first time. We loved Katie and Chad's scripts, they were simple and quite dark, and reminded us how libraries can lead you down the road to ruin, but then get you right back on track. It was our idea to use real actors in all four spots, instead of CGI characters used in most library commercials."

Um, right.

by Steve Hall    Oct-21-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Campaigns, Commercials, Good, Strange

Agency Brings Birth of an Idea Analogy to Life in Video

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Perhaps due to the embarrassing Agency.com Subway video debacle that likely caused every agency to crawl back into its self-promotion shell for fear of nasty public retribution, videos highlighting the internal workings of an ad agency have been few and far between. Ending this reign of fear and daring to expose itself to the industry at large, Atlanta-based Moxie Interactive is out with Birth of an Idea, a video which turns a classic analogy into a fairly humorous look at the reality of giving birth to an idea. Yes, the video does go there.

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by Steve Hall    Oct-20-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Agencies, Good, Video

Burlesque Dancing Daughter Relieved Mom's Modern

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Everyone of us has experienced that embarrassing moment when, to our horror, our parents find out about that not so straight and narrow thing we do whether it be for play or for work. When it occurs, you just want to bury your head and forget your parents even exist. In this commercial for Renault, that notion is put to use but with a twist.

Because the Renault Twingo is a modern car for modern times, moms who drive them are also modern and don't have a problem with their daughters stepping outside the Sunday church group, taking initiative and making a few extra bucks in a job one wouldn't usually highlight during that coffee gathering after Sunday service.

Twingo. We live in modern times.

by Steve Hall    Oct-20-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Commercials, Good

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