Here's a neat way to draw attention without stripping down and eating body parts. In January, Improv Everywhere got 200 ordinary-looking people to invade New York's Grand Central station and freeze on cue for five minutes.
It was pretty well-orchestrated. One guy went catatonic while picking up some papers he dropped. A couple froze mid-stride. A girl's just-peeled banana never made its mark.
Surrounding bystanders totally COULD NOT DEAL. It was like witnessing the rapture. When everyone started moving again, witnesses applauded.
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Duval Guillaume, to promote the Waffles & Dinges truck in New York city, painted grates yellow and placed little signs with promotional messaging atop the grates. Neat.
They came for the smokers, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a smoker.
They came for the caffeine junkies, and I did not speak up because I drank neither coffee nor tea.
Then they came for sex, and chocolate, and my sluttiest Halloween costume, and there was no one left to speak up for me.
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To propel its classic kicks back into salience, Adidas made a gigantor pair of Superstars and gave one shoe to each coast.
I did The Eyeroll when a bunch of dudes started whipping out spray paint cans because the first thing a brand does in crisis is reach for a graffiti artist. (Adidas also did the tagging thing last year and the year before. Plus, Reebok and Converse have already peed on this hydrant.)
But the resulting footwear is (of course) pretty dope. If in doubt, a whole three seconds of the video is devoted to recording some dude in a doo-rag giving Adidas props.
Sam Flores and Upper Playground designed the left coast sneak; NYC and Surface2Air, Paris handled the right. Thanks in:fluencia for pushing the news our way.
On my way to work today, I passed three Sovereign Bank employees wheeling around outside City Hall on Segways, handing out flyers. And not just any Segways, comically branded white & red Sovereign Bank Segways. It's part of Sovereign's spring marketing campaign to tell people about their $150 incentive to open checking accounts.
Now my colleague Amanda Mooney thought the Segways were a brilliant marketing gimmick only if your marketing goal was to make your brand look old and stodgy, and normally I would agree with her, but ever since Alexander Ovechkin & the Washington Capitals turned a Segway tour around DC into a hilarious media opportunity, I've been in favor of Segway marketing. Hey, they may look ridiculous, but at least we pay attention to them.
- Here's a trailer for The Big Bang Theory, a comedy of geek/glam stereotypes that will probably last all of two seasons. And the saddest part is, I'll probably watch it at some point. It returns April 14 on CBS.
- This stunt by agency New Message for The Phone, a Dutch show where a randomly-placed phone surprises whomever picks it up with a chance to win 25,000 Euros, was called "HILARISCH!" by one a YouTube fan. I didn't find it that funny, but I like that there are people somewhere in the world shouting "HILARISCH!", possibly even as I write this out.
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- Milk makes baby-eating witches insecure about their looks. Dude. Did she just try passing her wart off as a mole?
- Cops with Slingbox and a bullhorn wreak havoc. "Haaands up. COME ON, THREE POINTER!"
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That probably generated traffic trouble.
The sex-and-candy action took place last month in Sao Paulo, when 40 panty-clad girls stood eating chocolate body parts in public places. Pics appeared on Irresistivel.net, which pinpointed their locations and Orkut profiles via Google Maps.
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- YAI, a charity for people with disabilities, used easy sex to bait youth into volunteering. Gawker spread the word and YAI pulled the campaign, to the chagrin of ad-heads and volunteers alike.
- Adidas and EVB, SF have launched an NCAA fanboy site called March is Brotherhood. Learn chants, read coach blogs and make coaches call your friends.
- itzbig thinks encouraging passive aggressive employees to get fired will help them find better careers.
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You've heard of the sometimes-subversive art of guerrilla marketing. But it's got nothin' on guerrilla gardening: One group's valiant attempts to improve public landscapes with illicit cultivation.
Guerrilla Communication says guerrilla gardening -- gardening on someone else's land without permission -- has been going on for centuries. Eco aesthetes are encouraged to take up a spade and alight upon the nearest eyesore with sunflowers at the ready.
Nice. Very Green Samaritan. Now what I could use is a super-awesome guerrilla room-cleaner.
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