Cnet reports Google will acquire radio digital services provider dMarc for $1.13 billion. dMarc helps radio stations manage ad inventory, deliver song/artist/station text information over broadcast and help advertisers manage their radio campaigns. Pressumably, Google will us dMarc to deliver its AdWords text ads over the system dramatically extending the search giant's reach into another medium and to many more ear/eyeballs. Maybe the day will come when a media planner can "buy the world" at the touch of a button.
Hoping to cash in on a bit of Numa Numa and William Hung viral fame, Sprint has launched a knowingly goofy video clip in which a bunch of guys get all jiggy with themselves in an attempt somehow...that's it...sell phones! That's right. Sprint has seeded the goofy video which points to gothookedup.com, a site that promotes Sprint's mobile entertainment services it feels are far more entertaining than lame online video clips. It's a nice sort of nudge-wink effort that does it's thing without being clandestine about it. Whether it goes anywhere, only Sprint will know.
Random Culture points to Disaffected, an anti-advergame of sorts in that, rather than lauding a brand, it pokes fun at a brand. It was created by Persuasive Games to show distaste for the apparent lack of competence displayed by FedEx Kinko's workers. As described on Persuasive's site, "Disaffected! gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise - is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction? Unseen but serious labor issues?"
While there are plenty of brand hate sites out there, Persuasive Games created the game to demonstrate that all advergames don't have to be all about brand love. We haven't played the game nor do we know if this is a first but we do like the idea. Gotta love dissent.
When the Magazine Publishers of America launched an ad campaign that illustrated even though life would be very different in the future and that people would still be reading magazines, online magazine ZOOZOOM spoofed the campaign and talked about how life is right now and that people are reading magazines online right now. ZOOZOOM has extended that spoof into a real campaign, taglined "Doing It," which shows people online in various scenes. There's also a video that illustrates how magazines aren't even good at killing a fly anymore.
Capitalizing on Friday the 13th fears, Greenpeace, through The Viral Chart, has released an online video (here too) that, with compelling imagery, claims building more nuclear plants is an invitation to terrorists 911-style. Sarah North, head of Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, said, "Millions of people could die as a result of a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant. This is a totally unacceptable risk. This film shows that building new nuclear power stations is a catastrophic gift to terrorists."
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If bad law firm advertising is your thing, you'll love this. Martin Willimas has created a really bad law firm website for law firm Warwick Seltz complete with the cheesy tagline, "If you've had bad pizza, we'd like to meetz ya." Yes, the law firm's speciality is pizza. Huh, you say? Hey, there's lawyers out there for every other conceivable thing. Why not pizza? OK, OK. The site's fake. It's a guised promotion for Donato's pizza. The site's got all the goodies including four really bad TV commercials with really, really bad jingles and the now required element in all online endeavours, a Subservient Chicken rip off that's actually funny.
Online photo sharing site Image Gravy has launched and will share advertising revenue with its members. It appears Overture is used to the ads and users will be paid based on how many times their images are viewed. The service is free to users.
In what might be the first use of a million dollar homepage for something other than personal gain, Sweden's Sam Nurmi has created HelpFirefox.com, a site that sells pixels for one dollar a pop and donates all the money to the Mozilla Foundation, makers of the open source Firefox browser. Given that the Mozilla Foundation has been very successful is raising money both for development and for advertising, it would appear this particular million dollar homepage idea might see some action.
For brands looking to extend their awareness to the ad-averse generation, Adland points us to user bars, graphic images which people can add to their forum signature or other online presence. User bars, which have been around for some time and are available all over the place, and are grouped into categories such as hobbies, cars, games, TV, movies, sports and, yes, brands. Adidas, Coke, Converse, Corona, Nokia, Nike, Snickers, Sony, Playboy, Pepsi, Reebok, and yes, cigarette makes such as lucky Strike and Marlboro since its about the last place they can advertise. Many users create their own user bars along with those that have been created by forum owners. User bars are a great way to reinforce a brand to those who are forum addicted and advertising averse.
Taking over for Nicole Ritchie and DJ AM, the cast of MTV's Laguna Beach will be featured in the Spring 2006 ad campaign for fashion label Bongo. Cast members Alex Murrel, Jason Wahler, Lauren Conrad, Stephan Colletti, Kristin Cavallari and Tallan Torriero will begin appearing in print ads in Seventeen, Teen People, Us Weekly, Star and Teen Vogue among others. Online will accompany print.
Dari Marder, Creative Director, BONGO, explains the campaign, "The Bongo demographic is the MTV viewer, so we could not think of a better way to reach our consumer. The concept behind the campaign is a party. So we rented an amazing mansion on PCH in Santa Monica, hired an Orange County band, 'The Colour' and let the gang do what came naturally. Alex, Jason, Lauren, Stephan, Kristin and Tallan had a blast on set and it comes through in the campaign. Alex who has an album coming out this spring got on stage with the band and sang, while the boys got a little carried away by pushing each other in the pool."
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