Today, not more than a few hours after word of George Carlin's death spread across the internet, this atrocity arrived in the Adrants inbox:
"Today, we learned of the passing of comedy great George Carlin, an unintentional champion of freedom of speech.
Over the years, the discussion of WHAT CAN BE SAID on TV has raised eyebrows, and court gavels. From "period" to "pregnant," how are companies talking to their audiences these days and how has it changed since years before.
An editor at [redacted] is available for commentary on this new media culture, including:
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Come on. You know you can remember it. You were in high school and your boyfriend or girlfriend was on the way over to visit and the anticipation was killing you. Killing you! Your heart was pounding. Chills were running through your body from head to toe. You couldn't wait to see her/him when you opened the door. And when you did, a gush of warmth filled your body and you smiled a big smile. And then...you couldn't wait to tell your mother you were "just going down to the basement to watch some TV" so you could....go down the basement, each tear your clothes off the other and embrace with an urgency words can never describe.
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To promote the Secret touchscreen and 5-mp camera phone, LG puts it in the hands of a stalker who uses it to "interact" with a sleeping woman in another apartment. Wait for the part where he sighs, and the phone shakes, and the covers come off!
Engadget's take: "early-90s softcore voodoo porn." But it gets better. No promo porn is complete without the cheap comedic ending that makes everything feel safely commercial again. Well, unless you're P. Diddy.
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Dashboard Rock, which represents Mazda's attempt to cash in on the popularity of games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, vibes like Dance, Dance Revolution for your fingers. You can also download 15 songs as you move through the game.
Now here are all the setbacks.
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It's unclear whether or not this is a joke but someone has placed ten Facebook profiles for sale on eBaby. The profiles, created by the same person but reflective of ten different types of people, are said to each have a minimum of 200 friends. Each profile was then actively integrated into the Facebook community through forums, events, networks, groups and all the other spider legs Facebook has to offer.
The seller is offering control of these profiles to marketers, writing, "Under the right conditions and for a fair price you will receive full control of these personas, as well as associated emails."
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Coinciding with the (coincidental!) release of a CDC survey that found Hispanic teens more likely to use drugs and try suicide than black and white kids, the Office for National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) launched this really weird campaign.
The heading above the girl at left says, "I sell drugs during recess." And here's one where a sheepish-looking boy divulges, "Yesterday, I offered marijuana to your daughter."
The effort will appear in print, on TV and over the radio.
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We did it to ourselves. Yes we did. With help from our much-loved DVRs. We started a war. A war between those who want to skip commercial and those who want people to see them no matter what technology exists to skip them. The latest in an increasing list of tactics comes from TBS which is running promotions during programming which involves pausing the show while an ad runs on the lower third of the screen. Right now, it's just station promos but, seriously, how long before we see paid advertising in this space? We did it to ourselves.
Some have pointed out the intrusive promotions are simply mirroring what's being promoted; the Bill Engvall show in a TV remote is a prominent plot element. Still. There's no doubt, after seeing this, every marketer will scream, "I want one!"
I don't really know what this video's all about, but I'm pretty sure it isn't worth $25,000 in prize money.
By the way, what a completely insane amount of dosh for a UGC contest. I mean seriously, way to piss off your bottom-line guys.
"Hey, chief. Uh, yeah. Not only did Budget not win new car rental customers, but our low-budget 'Travel Budget!' marketing strategy also cost us over 25 grand."
Just because you're not spending $2.5 million on TV doesn't mean you should wipe your ass with the savings.
UPDATE: It turns out the video linked above was made by Budget employees in a deluded effort to encourage more users to enter the contest. How. Very. Sad.
- I thought this Meth Minute video would be a wacky cartoon about abusing methamphetamines. But it was just a reel of complaint calls.
- Oprah's Angel Network and Free the Children have formed the O Ambassadors project, which "encourages young leaders to dream."
- MoveOn wages war against Pastor John Hagee, who said Adolf Hitler was a God-sent hunter of Jews. Hagee is one of McCain's "key backers," and McCain is currently MoveOn's pet project.
- Chevy considers how impractical a dancing car would be.
- Yahoo offers an under-the-table paid program where you provide the description ad copy for the ORGANIC RESULTS of your website. And it'll only cost you TWENTY CENTS per click. This is because Yahoo's spiders might fail to properly process your SEO efforts. Little wonder Jolie O'Dell calls it "frikkin criminal." (We second the motion.)
InGrid Home Security recently tapped video site National Banana -- whose online offerings include "Gay 4 Obama" and "Spitzer Call Girl Resigns" -- to help build some saucy new ads.
Yeah.
See the results of the collabo on InGrid. The idea behind the spots is to compare InGrid's sexy "wired" home security with the cumbersome systems of yore. The out-of-touch dad/embarrassed-young-daughter gimmick was not lost on us.
Horrid.
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