Subscribe to RSS

For Mere Pocket Change, 'East Touch Magazine' Lets You Into Its Pants

levis-unbuttoned-hk2.jpg

From September to October, Levi's "Live Unbuttoned" campaign invades newsstands and 7-Elevens in Hong Kong.

Agency TBWA\TEQUILA partnered with East Touch Magazine to outfit its next issue in miniature 501s. Mag-lurkers will literally have to unbutton the jeans just to finger a copy. Bonus points if you can fit in them!

There'll also be a guerrilla effort in Causeway Bay, where customers can experience the "Live Unbuttoned" campaign live and, uh, unbuttoned, which I think just means they'll be able to try jeans on in a tent. (I'm hoping there'll also be a lively music component. Chinese gen-yers love free music -- who doesn't? -- so it would make sense if Levi's also promoted its free music downloads there, too.)

by Angela Natividad    Sep- 2-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Events, Good, Guerilla, Magazine, Newspaper

Tyra Banks: Not Just an Entrepreneurial Success Story!

tyra-banks-cw.JPG

If this ad for the Sept. 3 premier of America's Next Top Model is any authority, she may also be Balarama, the zany fete-lovin' brother of Krishna.

by Angela Natividad    Sep- 2-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Magazine

Get Hitched in Paris and Las Vegas -- at the Same Time!

paris-vegas.jpg

You'd have the best of two depraved worlds: a gaudy lustfest and some seriously decadent cake. Kind of like the ad at left, which was ganked out of last month's Travel and Leisure magazine.

Tagline: "Everything's sexier in Paris Las Vegas." I don't know about sexy, but it's sort of pretty after a few Pernods, and David Hasselhoff makes the occasional cameo. Plus, who can beat rooms starting at $89? Okay, okay, besides Circus Circus.

by Angela Natividad    Aug-27-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Magazine, Promotions, Racy, Strange

Jawbone Ad Highlights 'Beauty' of Transgender Plastic Surgery

jawbone2.jpg

The freakish looking transgenger queen Amanda Lepore -- who had her first cosmetic surgery at age 15, decided to have a sex change in high school, led a failed suburban housewife life and then hit New York for fame and fortune -- appeared in a Jawbone ad in this week's New Yorker.

Having already fronted M.A.C., Armani, MTV, and Swatch campaigns, Lepore appears in one half of a spread. The other half features what appears to be a plastic surgeon with a somewhat dumbfounded look on his face, possibly in reaction to the overly "worked-on" Lepore.

One always aims to be a bit eye-catching in advertising. This ad certainly accomplishes that.

by Steve Hall    Aug-26-08   Comments (4)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Celebrity, Good, Magazine

Can't Find a Job? ANPE's Not Convinced

CVs.jpg

ANPE, the National Agency for Employment in France, tapped TBWA\Corporate to preach its gospel to disheartened work force rejects. What TBWA came up with is respectful of ANPE's traditionally risk-averse style, but also playful in a Where's Waldo? sorta way.

The prints are detail-rich and do a nice job of connecting the online world, which is big but can seem solitary, with the bustling offline world. The ad at left features a city intersection flooded with people. It reads, "700,000 CVs online to find your next business partner."

See variants:

o 300,000 offers online everyday to locate your future office.
o 400,000 people log on anpe.fr everyday to save time.

What fun. It would be great to see these, larger than life, in a Metro somewhere.

by Angela Natividad    Aug-26-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Good, Magazine, Outdoor, Poster

Bulging Global Objects Sell Mobile Object

lucy_becker_what_mobile.jpg

This ad works on a couple of levels. First, and quite obviously, it states simply the name of the advertiser and provides a URL to the advertiser's site. Second, it ever so perfectly winks at the likely reaction many will have to the ad with their attention drawn not to anything mobile but to a couple of things global bulging outward threatening to escape their tenuous confines.

by Steve Hall    Aug-21-08   Comments (2)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Celebrity, Magazine, Racy

ABC to Roadblock TV Guide August 25

tv_guide_abc_august_25.jpg

Who knew people still read TV Guide? Apparently enough still do to make it worthwhile for ABC to buy out all the ad space in the August 25 issue in advance of the upcoming fall television season. The network will buy 21 pages in the issue and insert a DVD for New York and Los Angeles subscribers and newsstand sales.

by Steve Hall    Aug-19-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Magazine, Television

Nissan Flirts with the Mold, but Fails to Break It

nissan-escape-the-pattern.jpg

This new spot for Nissan (:30 and :60) immediately piqued interest: one car circulates a vinyl album. Interesting retro tones punctuate the background. The camera pans out, revealing many vehicles circulating many vinyls. It's an image that brings Warhol to mind.

What's going on? What'll happen next? Will Nissan pull a Dell?

Nah. One jalapeno-red maverick races off its track (cut to big Nissan logo!), encouraging others to do the same. (A vaguely familiar idea. Got a quote for me, Mazda?) They briefly fall in line, a tactic car advertisers seem to love, then park with a screech in haphazard fashion.

The 350Z, arguably Nissan's sexiest model, pulls abruptly into the foreground. The tagline follows: "Escape the pattern. Nissan."

Bleh.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Aug-15-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Magazine, Poster, Television

My God, is that an Asterisk You're Hiding? You Filthy Fake.

bad-asterisk.jpg

Apparently asterisks are bad.* In a campaign called "Don't be an Asterisk," the US Olympic Committee and the Ad Council associate them with steroids and inauthenticity.**

Witness as a high school jock repulses once-loving classmates when an asterisk starts forming on his forehead. (Apt, I guess, since steroids are supposed to make you break out like whoa.)

But here I was, all this time, thinking the teen angst market was reserved exclusively for the zit zappers. Speaking of which, J&J -- parent company of Neutrogena! -- funded this effort, which was put together by TBWA/Chiat/Day/NY.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Aug-14-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Cause, Commercials, Magazine, Strange, Video

Mushrooms Marketed, Frumputantes Invade, Olympics Opening Ceremony Trashed One! More! Time!

champignonsdeparis.jpg

- At left: a French mushroom ad! OMG cute. Caption: "Paris mushrooms: it's when they're in your mouth that they're the happiest." Go make them happy. Our resident expat PT Ford isn't so amused.

- Nothing starts the day off better than a kung fu drink ad.

- Dario at Invoke sent us this shot of the Newfoundland-based Hits 99.1 FM van.

- Worthless but interesting tag cloud tool. This one lets you pick fonts and colors. Pop in a URL, see what your homepage mentions most. (Adrants loves itself some Leigh.)

- Public School Intelligentsia learns us a new word: frumputante. Think cash-money bag ladies in Juicy Couture sweats. Streaky hair a plus. Ugh.

more »

by Angela Natividad    Aug-14-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Best, Campaigns, Commercials, Events, Good, Magazine, Online, Opinion, Outdoor, Trends and Culture

follow-us-on-twitter-bird-160.jpg
    @adrants
    @stevehall