Of Ford's new Drive One commercials, The Ford Story blog tells us "The comments are as real as the people who made them. They are not scripted. In fact, these people didn't know that it was Ford filming them, or that they would be used in commercials. That's the only way to get genuine opinions, and that's how these were produced."
The campaign, in which Ford owners tell the camera what they like so much about their vehicles, breaks October 12. You can view eight of the commercials here.
Ford does seem to be fairing much better than GM. Will these spots help?
Oh how boobs can get advertisers in trouble. Especially really big ones with lots of cleavage spilling out of a bra. That seems to be what's at issue with an UlsterTrader billboard campaign carrying the headline "Nice Headlamps" and copy that reads, "What do you look for in a car?"
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Social media is great, right? It's fun. It's social. It's amusing. But it's also a serious form of communication and interaction businesses can use to connect with their customers. If that sounds like a line out of a social media conference description, it pretty much is.
Adrants is supporting Business Development Institute's The Social Consumer B2C Case Studies & Rountables Conference occurring November 12 at the Graduate Center of The City University of NY from 8AM to 1PM.
At the conference you will hear case studies from McDonald's and its Voice of McDonald's campaign, Intuit and its iPhone application, Allstate Insurance and its use of blogs, and user-generated content, JetBlue and its 'social customer service" and Roger Smith Hotel, the New York City mecca for all things social media.
Roundtables will include expanded discussion on the presented case studies as well as additional topics.
If you're interested in attending, check out the details here.
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- The Michelin Man is getting makeover. He's transforming into a "tire-chucking superhero." OK, then.
- WONGDOODY: The company, along with a few lucky staffers, will be featured on next week's Oct. 14 episode of "America's Next Top Model" as part of a "challenge" experienced by the season's petite models.
- Ooo. Ooo. Here's a good one from a reader: Bridge Worldwide, an ad agency in Ohio, is having employees spend the day selling the CMO's new book, Marketing With Meaning. They've sent my company four unsolicited emails about it, in addition to spamming social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. Marketing With Meaning? I don't think these people understand what irony is.
- This is what those New York creatives who charge $750 per hour do with the money.
- Outside Magazine enters the world of Harry Potter moving media.
- Check out Milkquarious. It's about a rock idol, White Gold, who swears by the power of milk for strong bones, hair, teeth and nails.
- Yellow Pages guerrilla marketing campaign hits the target.
Yet another Twitter-based promotion. Yawn. In fact, we're so tired of these things we can't even write about them anymore, so we're going let a Twipple representative tell you about the promotion. Oh wait, we can't be tired of this. There's a quote from Adrants right on the Twipple home page. Guess we should be nice. But anyway, we're still letting them tell you about it.
"Under my guise of Twipple I'm accepting emails to me - or to one of my Kind Agents - to perform acts of kindness on a nominated party.
So, the successfully nominated friend or colleague will wonder (happily) why someone has just bought them a coffee. As they leave, they see someone drop a wallet, when they hand it over the person says, hey, here's $40 for being cool. As part of the nomination Twipple will ask for some loose details on likes dislikes.
They may turn the corner and be pleased to have the most gorgeous man/woman say "hi" and compliment them.
You get the idea?"
Not really but we'll just go with it for fun. Already, Twipple has 72 random acts of kindness and is now selling items and donating the proceeds to NY Cares.
Hello? Hello? The helium-fueled floating viral thing has already been done people! Don't you pay attention to YouTube everyday? Apparently you don't because now you're blowing bubbles with helium and floating into the air like those idiots in the Levi's video.
Oops. Wait. This is different. For Blue Film Production, Rapp France created the video and is pimping to any brand that would like to slap its logo on it with the apparent intention of getting some viral goodness. Trouble is if everyone's already seen the unbranded version, why would anyone want to see a branded version?
As Loren Feldman loves to say, "It doesn't matter." It's all a ruse to get people to check out a case study covering the steps it takes to create a successful viral campaign.
So...to sell cars you...promote a detergent? Yes, it's the way of things in this crazy new world of Advertising 2.085736298. And that's exactly what Subaru is doing to promote the new Outback. Complete with a full blown infomercial in which outlandish claims and disclaimers are the norm, Hungry Man has Scott Vincent telling us why wives should no longer worry when their husbands come homes after a day of four wheeling and sit down on the all white couch. That and other sill infomercial stuff. Not bad.
OMFG. This has to be the worst "viral" ever created. It's filled with repetitive fake laughter, an overly long lead up and a painfully lame conclusion. It's like a bunch of 13 year old boys got together to film what they thought would be a funny joke on a friend. So stupid. So idiotic. Such a waste of time...and, unfortunately, some marketers money.
We can't blame 7thChamber for this. They're just seeding it.
Here's an approach to doggy family planning we haven't seen before. The SPCA in Malaysia is urging pet owners to neuter or spay their dogs. But they've done it in a very interesting "There are some things you can't teach your dog" kind of way.
If only dogs actually were this smart. Then when the moment struck us humans, all we'd have to do would be to send old Butch to the store for us.
You know those ratings that precede every movie you see in the theater? Well, the Vancouver International Film Festival has a new one. It's "V" and it states, "An Open Mind is Advised." So how do they creatively make people aware of this "new" rating? They employ a collection of sexual proclivities designed to widen our acceptance level of, by association we assume, new and different forms of film making.
The work was created by TBWAVancouver and directed by Tim Godsall. It's all about sexuality. We think.
We watched this black and white PSA filled with disbelief as images of deserted grocery stores selling apples for $11/lb, cans of chicken noodle soup for $22.78/ea and ground beef for $52.49.lb faded in and out. We wondered is this a post apocalyptic world movie trailer? Then it brightens, a woman returns a loaf of bread to the shelf and a tagline reads, "Imagine a world where food was too expensive. For 36 million Americans, it is."
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Oh the salacious things we could tell you about IZEAfest which occurred this past weekend in Orlando. But we're not going to because you don't read Adrants for that stuff, right? You read it for the compelling and in-depth advertising news we provide. Wait, what? Did we just write that sentence? Have we turned into Advertising Age?
Hell no but we're not the industry's giant asshole either. Suffice to say there was puking, a high profile Twitter account hijacking, a lost iPhone debacle, a Twitter cat fight, a Zuckerberg/Lacy-style session trashing, a theme park line cutting incident and an act of contrition which was, well, less than contrite. But none of this is important. What's important is IZEAfest held a wonderful conference at which there were wonderfully informative speakers, wonderful attendees, wonderfully planned social events and a a chance to learn a lot about how advertising isn't the same advertising it once was.
Upon arrival Thursday, the Renaissance Hotel pool was the place to be. Julia Roy and Sarah Evans were among the many drinking in the sun before a few hundred of us hopped on some buses for a ride across the state to Busch Gardens where the park was holding its annual Howl-O-Scream event. Just imagine an entire theme park turned into one gigantic scare zone and you have Howl-O-Scream.
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Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade. No wait, you should call a spade a spade all the time. Especially in an industry filled with puffery, bent truths, white, lies and a general disdain for just telling people to "buy my shit." Which is why this Australian Kettle Chips commercial from Sydney-based Bulldozer is so wittiliciuously refreshing.
Surrounded by a bevy of babes who fulfill the sex sells role, a smarmy dude dryly calls out the buffoonery that occurs in most advertising which he refers to as "commerce parading as entertainment."
This is both funny and lame at the same time. But, because it's an agency pimping itself, all can be forgiven because, ya know, agencies are funny and lame at the same time. To celebrate its move from some crappy warehouse location to sweet downtown San Franciso digs, Bars + Tone created a Michael Bay-style video complete with dramatic music, lots of explosions, and self -important men dressed in black peering into the camera like David Caruso does so well on CSI Miami.
Don't you love this business?
For a hefty dose of product placement, all one has to do this week is check out a recent episode of FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in which Coors Light and Dave and Busters get heavily pimped. No wait, they are salaciously slathered upon us in a way that makes one want to barf! Of course, that could have been the entire point of it. all. Anyway, here it is.
We're already over a week late on this but...Starbucks recently launched its new VIA product yesterday. For those of you living in a coffee vacuum VIA is Starbucks' answer to the one shot coffee pod trend in home brewing. The brand is touting the offering as being so good "you won't be able to tell the difference between Starbucks VIA and our brewed coffee."
Um what? Isn't this completely counter to the brand Starbucks? Hello? Starbucks? We visit your stores for the highest quality brewed coffee. We happily pay a little extra for your unique ability to make that great cup of coffee a cup we CAN'T get elsewhere. Your outstanding personal service (most of the time). And sometimes the ambiance. We WANT to taste the difference.
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Ford evangelist Scott Monty's sent us some stats on the progress of Ford's Fiesta Movement, whereby 100 social "agents" drive around the country in Euro-spec Fiestas and complete appealing monthly missions related to volunteerism, adventure, style and design.
The results of the missions are broadcast on YouTube, flickr, Facebook and Twitter.
According to Monty et al., brand awareness for the Fiesta has risen to the equivalent of models that have been on the market for two to three years.
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- Toyota and Saatchi get sued for freaking a woman out with their stalkerish Matrix campaign.
- If you guys are in NYC next week, join me at an AdForum social media sesh called Brand Servants or Brand Masters?. I think you can guess what it's about and why it might be relevant. Entry's $95; it'll be two hours long.
- Social media summed up.
- The October 23 deadline for the Viral Film Festival, held by Vanksen, fast approaches! Get your cool viral work in and see it projected over a panoply of drunk people in Paris on November 26. No cost to enter; this is all for the love of the crowd. (And some goodwill for Vanksen, natch.)
- One tweet you probably don't want.
- Something about nosepicking.
- NPR wants hyperlocal journos.
For client UPS, agency Doner and production firm Psyop imagine a helpless protagonist braving the challenges of a cardboard world to meet a deadline. The ability to print remotely liberates him in the end.
The imagery is inspired but the ad suffers from mediocrity of narrative and a weak message. Next!
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Australia's Kettle Chips tries its hand at self-aware gratuitous advertising -- the trick's that's fast become a must-do for any brand that wants to demonstrate it's down with savvy ad-saturated users.
The piece is, blatantly enough, labeled "Commerce Blatantly Parading as Entertainment" by Ads of the World. It features a rich douchey guy reading a storybook to a harem of hot girls at a party. They show off their ironic smarts, and he reminds us more than once what the score is.
"Tonight we are reading the tale of the hare and tortoise, and we'll attempt to relate it to Kettle Chips, who are paying for this ad..."
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Brazilian retailer Lilica Ripilica, which is like a more palatable Limited Too, is embarking on an effort under a new tagline: "Enchantment." Its first piece, "Espelhos" ("Mirrors"), depicts a little girl who slips into a pastel fantasy world where petals turn into butterflies and you get dressed in ribbons.
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Black Eyed Peas partnered with Oprah to celebrate the 24th season of her show, which sought to drum up viewership with big kick-off fetes on Michigan Ave.
The pop band sang I Gotta Feeling onstage while a humongous crowd performed a flashmob dance routine on the floor.
We watched with polite interest, having been forced to watch many a flashmob over the past coupla months (especially since the death of MJ), and were left with three as-yet-unanswered questions.
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Never mind Birkin bags and pretty scarves. The object at left is a new and insanely luxurious piece of social currency dubbed WHY -- the Wally Hermes Yacht. Outfitted with 900 meters squared of thermophotovoltaic panels (that's their way of saying it's also green), it was designed in partnership with Hermes and a company called Wally, which specializes in futuristic boats and yachts.
The pricey contentment-eating boat porn was dropped into our laps by Wisey, author of The Digestif, who told us that WHY takes Hermes' luxury ethos to a new level: don't just sport your means around your neck or on your arm: LIVE INSIDE IT. Alongside whales or off the coast of Greece!
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For Nike, Manchester U soccer player Patrice Evra unzips his AW 77 hoodie and bares a vintage-style tee that reads EVRA THE GAME.
This marks the opening for a pixellated retro-gamer race to the finish, with Evra as Player 1 and each match a daunting new level. You've got the occasional zombies and giant men, but ultimately Evra defeats all and surpasses even the France level, at which point you're met with the campaign heading: THE GAME IS NEVER OVER.
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OK so dumping thousands of ping pong balls from an airplane for a dorm complex party while in college isn't exactly the same as this but there are some similarities.
Yesterday, 300 pots of Golden Wonder were dropped from the skies over Portsmouth (UK) and one lucky winner, Tuan Anh Nguyen, 24 years old from Southsea in Portsmouth, took home a pot with £1,000 inside.
The stunt celebrated the launch of The Nation's Noodle & The Nation's Pasta, a new line of instant noodle and pasta snacks from Golden Wonder.
Here's a video of the event.
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