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Domino's Knocks Off Lonelygirl with Spoiled Adolescent Brat

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An Adrants reader points us to Mackenzieheartsu, a boring but strangely watchable spoiled rich girl whose travails over her father's choice of car colour culminate in her getting what she wants and selling the old car for $9.99 on Ebay.

The last video drops a link to Anything Goes Deal, the latest Domino's promotion, a less-than-subtle hint likely to fly over the heads of everyone involved. Nobody in her comments section seems the wiser, anyway.

The campaign ran a couple weeks in December and looks over, which is too bad because we thought Mackenzie more convincing than LonelyGirl15 (who had suspiciously clean production skills). The comments she received indicate she made a vivid impression with people riding the Laguna Beach and OC waves.

Our favourite comment was "I hope your father sells you on Ebay in $9.90 and some poor Norwegian baker family buy you to bake fish bread whole of your life." We're not sure what fish bread is, but it sounds uncute and we have serious doubts Mackenzie would like its shade. It might not match anything in her room.

by Angela Natividad    Jan- 5-07   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Online, Promotions, Video

Browsers Filter, Cabs Bulled, Sprint Hunts, 'O.C.' Dies

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- A case is made for the implementation of browser level ad filtering.

- New York City cabs get decked out like bulls to promote televised bull riding on cable channel Versus.

- Sprint is on the hunt for a new creative agency for its $1.6 billion creative account.

- Advertising Age's Jonah Bllom likes the new Wall Street Journal.

- Qwest won't jack you up, mobsters recycle, Mini beats SUV in bullfight and more new commercial in Advertising Age's TV Spot of the Week.

- Merrill Lynch says U.S. ad spending will increase 2.9 percent in 2007. Traditional slows but isn't dead.

- In response to FOX's cancellation of The O.C., tweens and teens mourn throughout the nation.

- England has now banned the advertising of cheese during children's programming.

- The Webber Dance School is has placed footstep patterns on treadmills in health club so people can try to learn the steps while working out on the treadmill. Nifty, indeed.

by Steve Hall    Jan- 4-07   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Agencies, Brands, Guerilla, Online, Outdoor, Television

Beamvertised Skater Skids Across Holland Buildings

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For Sportlife, a chewing gum that's big in Holland, Netherlands-based Fresh Creation orchestrates a stunning promotion called "Can You Make it to the Pack?" in which a skater is beamed doing tricks across billboards, buildings and other cityscapes.

For those who lament street peace jarred by deviant boarders the beamvertised, totally heedless skater must have been especially distracting, along the lines of "Goddamnit, now they move through walls." Must have been frustrating.

We dig the campaign and envision a world in which beamvertising becomes as much a part of city life as the lights on Times Square. Can you see it now? It would be next to impossible to drive. We'd all just walk around with that deer-in-headlights look on our faces all the time.

by Angela Natividad    Dec-22-06   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Outdoor, Promotions

Smirnoff Gives Lost Stars Fresh Play, Children Point and Laugh

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Smirnoff Ice's Save the Mistletoe is an amusingly long-way-around attempt to say Smirnoff brings people together (just like mistletoe - so stop ravaging innocent bushes).

While we remain unmoved by the plight of the sprig, the execution wins us over. By some curious witch magic the campaign features celebrity supporters that we thought were long dead or had found joy in covert day jobs. Natalie from The Facts of Life, Lisa Turtle from Saved by the Bell, Tiffany who crooned "I Think We're Alone Now" and even the Soup Nazi band together to protect the kissing plant from further appropriation by brute force.

That's not all. Kevin at PR Blog divulges having seen a swamp-like creature that was actually supposed to be mistletoe, getting heckled by children at a nearby ice rink for love of the campaign. We wonder which sponsoring celebrity burn-out he happened to be. We put our money on The Incredible Hulk.

by Angela Natividad    Dec-20-06   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Campaigns, Celebrity, Good, Guerilla, Outdoor

MTV Sydney Slam Tags Side of Building For Christmas

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In Sydney, to celebrate Christmas, MTV got a crowd of restless people to litter...oh wait...tag the side of a building with 2,000 magnetic LED lights. They turned the whole thing into a video as only MTV can. Looks like it was fun. Not sure though. Though we do wonder what is was like for the people, if any, living in the building to be pelted by 2,000 magnets.

by Steve Hall    Dec-15-06   Comments (2)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Guerilla, Video

Beer Bottles Bring Christmas Spirit to Union Station

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Who needs chimes or bells to create Christmas carols when you have beer bottles instead? Yes, Amstel has come up with an inventive promotion that fits perfectly with the holiday season. In New York's Union Square today, a group of carolers delivered holiday tunes by blowing on beer bottles filled to various levels to make the right sounds. Giving something back while selling. Nice.

by Steve Hall    Dec-14-06   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Outdoor

Roehm Reamed, Homes Eaten, Mel Gibson Gets A Menorah

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- Lost Planet thinks they've made a trailer for their Xbox 360 game that'll shatter cultural norms, change lives and trigger brain aneurisms on-sight. It's a fair trailer but it won't look that great six months from now when some other game has kicked its ass, as these things tend to go.

- Fledgling supermarket Bloom cozy up with agency BooneOakley to make a real-live gingerbread house in South Carolina (of all fucking places)! And yes, we will help them eat it.

- News from our incognito buddy FishNChimps: Coke steals from actual creative people. That always leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. And considering they've been riding the holiday polar bear thing and/or copying Pepsi's campaigns for the last two hundred years to the nth degree, that really came as no major shocker. To witness the fuckage of other creative companies, hit Urban Counterfeiters.

- Join NPR's first-ever holiday craft contest before it is gone. Forever. Perhaps you can beat the cleverly rendered Mel Gibson menorah. Yeah, you heard us. A Mel Gibson menorah. Craftwise, it could be unbeatable.

- SAB Miller's Columbia by Bavaria beer is raffling off the famed "Man Smoking" painting on February 28 as part of a promotion.

- Southwest Airlines...blah, blah, blah...CGM contest...blah, blah, blah...YouTube...blah, blah, blah...win a trip...blah, blah, blah and blah.

- AdJab is as pissed off as we are about people labeling things viral before they actually become viral.

- George Parker is all over Julie Roehm's ass crapping on her supposed avalanche or job offers, delivering the inside story on Draft/FCB's lack of promised analytics skills and poking holes in the Advertising Age Jonah Bloom "in-depth" Julie Roehm interview. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

by Angela Natividad    Dec-13-06   Comments (5)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Campaigns, Celebrity, Commercials, Consumer Created, Guerilla, Promotions, Video

Pig in Pain Promotes ... Pig ... Pain.

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Duvall Guillaume launched a bizarre campaign for animal rights group GAIA in Belgium. It's called Pigs in Pain. From the PR guy's letter:

"In Belgium, five million piglets are castrated without anaesthetic every year. The cries of agony of these piglets are unbearable. Yet our government still pretends not to hear it. In spite of promises they made 3 years ago to ban the cruelty."

With that in mind they created a pop group called Pigs in Pain. Their single, which was actually released on the radio, consisted of pigs screaming in inexplicable agony. It made our ears bleed. Clever way to get animal angst out to the public. So read the requisite blog, watch the music video and share in the plight of Belgian pigs. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

by Angela Natividad    Dec- 6-06   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Campaigns, Good, Guerilla, Online

Timberland Offers Self-Expression With Leather Billboards

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It's rare we receive a press release that isn't rife with orgasmic marketing blather and seems more concerned with "appearing" intelligent than actually being intelligent so we were pleased to received this straight forward release from Arnold touting their new leather billboard work for Timberland. We're so happy we don't have to sift through this release like so many others simply to find, among the thousands of words, the hundred or so that actually say anything that we're just going to reprint the thing here:

"Today, Timberland started posting billboards made of its iconic (Ed: OK, "iconic" might be a bit over the top) boot leather in three New York City boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx. Over a two-day period, local artists representing each borough will adorn the billboards with original artwork reflecting what the borough means to them. (Ed: a little squishy but we'll let it pass) The goal of the project, created by Arnold, is to create a platform for artists to express themselves and their passion for community, using the Timberland boot as canvas. (Ed: Easy now. It's just a billboard.)

more »

by Steve Hall    Dec- 5-06   Comments (2)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Consumer Created, Good, Guerilla, Outdoor

'Prison Break' Prisoners Spotted in Portugal

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To support the launch of Prison Break on the Portuguese FOX channel, Portuguese agency Torke created a guerrilla-style outdoor campaign with a band of chained prisoners walking the streets, posters with images of the show's cast placed behind the bars or windows and fences and small headshot posters and cards placed in shops. Accompanying the campiagn was a press kit a hidden spoon and a prison blueprint. See it all here.

by Steve Hall    Dec- 4-06   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Direct, Good, Guerilla, Outdoor, Poster, Television

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