A new campaign from BBDO and the Ad Council for the Irag and Afghanistan Veterans of America reminds people the one percent of Americans who put their life in harm's way for the other 99 percent should not be left alone when they finally come home.
The campaign includes television, print and a social networking site which offers returning veterans the chance to connect with fellow soldiers and work towards re-entering society.
"I'm a PC ... and I love the slimming effect of a purple striped shirt."
That's the profound kick-off to "Real PC," one of the :30 TV spots being cobbled together with clips from Microsoft's Upload Your Own 'I'm a PC' Ad! campaign. I saw one last night and winced; what is it about this effort that rings so painfully desperate? See more here.
These user-generated variants manage to be just as quirky and random as the originals, with a little amateur-vid spice tossed in. One guy at ad:tech's Millennial panel said he finds these ads more "democratic" than Apple's snarky but irresistible "Mac vs. PC" spots. He's not wrong; they definitely reek of The People's OS. For whatever that's worth.
Let's just hope Crispin didn't produce them on a Mac this time.
more »
- Be a GAMER. Made of steel. Video game school will show you how.
- The US Army is using webcasts by overseas soldiers to bait new recruits. The series is called -- wait for it! -- "Straight from Iraq." Soldiers are ready to take your questions.
- Keep up with Advergirl's social manifesto on how companies are using social media. It's illustrated!
- To remind us all how with-it and un-stodgy it is, Microsoft (I guess?) sends rats skydiving. Sick 'em, PETA.
more »
by Angela Natividad
Nov-11-08
Comments (3)
Topic: Agencies, Brands, Campaigns, Cause, Guerilla, Online, Opinion, Political, Promotions, Research, Strange
Last Wednesday after ad:tech, Eyeblaster recognized six agencies for the best digital ad campaigns of 2008.
more »
blogads Founder Henry Copeland points to what he dubs the "cleverest Adsense ad ever." Without hesitation, we'd have to agree completely. Riffing on Google's stock market woes, Woot placed an ad that reads, "We saw what's over there. Figured you'd look away. So we put our ad here. woot.com." Is that not brilliant placement (and copy) or what?
- You know you wanna browse through Barack Obama's flickr.
- Make the Logo Bigger taps his own top 25 influential bloggers to spit knowledge on Pepsi's blogger outreach effort.
- GOP taps social media to rekindle its fire.
- Levi's to agencies: want our business? We want your internal invoices.
- PomX break room sheep go "What the fu-uuuck?" for "maximum wakey-wakedness!" Via.
- CEOs in ads = company death rattle.
- Rate your hate for "Saved by Zero."
While it's said attendance was down slightly from past conferences, the New York ad:tech conference was, by all counts, alive and well despite 24/7 news reports reports of doom and gloom. It's true the economy is not doing too well right now nor is it expected to improve over the course of the next year. But, thankfully, the online and interactive market space is one of the few bright spots amongst the graying economic skyline.
In his keynote address Tuesday morning eMarketer Co-Founder and CEO Geoff Ramsey said he expects to see a 14.5 percent growth rate in U.S. online ad spending in 2009, not bad for an economy that's supposed to be tanking. Many other sources have proclaimed such health as well for the space which bodes well for those of us making our living in online marketing.
more »

Outrage! Outrage! Doesn't Chiquita care about actors working in hot guerilla suits for pean... bananas? THE SHAME. Righteous indignation over, check out Eat A Chiquita for more high-LARRY-ass clips. (Who doesn't love seeing a banana try and pick up hot chicks or spar with a gorilla.) The site also has a section where you can make a custom video to send to friends. As microsites go, it starts quick, offers some stuff to play with and keeps you engaged for a little bit. A banana win-win!
As you prepare for the upcoming post-election pre-Christmas/Super Bowl ad madness, check out what Tropicana did during the election on An Orange America. They mapped voters with the terms they were discussing most. Cool visual aggregation ensues! (Read more about how it works here from Simon Owens who worked on it.) Tropicana did this in a way that connected red and blue states with their product by bringing it back to the color orange. (To check out other forms of visualizationosity online, go here.)
While not as busy as Monday or Tuesday night, Wednesday at ad:tech New York offered up quite a few things for ad:tech attendees to do after the day's panels ended. Wine Library's Gary Vaynerchuk gave a "motivational speech" to several hundred people at The Volstead but it didn't turn out quite as planned. Even with a few hundred people there to hear Gary speak, the club refused to turn down the music in favor of serving the eight people in the club not associate with the Mashable event.
Gary, ever the resourceful one, was not to be deterred so he asked the crowd to follow him out to the sidewalk where, on a milk crate, he gave his talk to those who chose to stay. Gary never lets a road block stand in his path.
Before the Mashable debacle, ChaCha held an event right after the day's panels ended in the Hilton's Bridges bar. Several hundred attended and were treated to free drinks. After a long day at a conference, who can complain about that? Right and no one did.
more »
|

@adrants
@stevehall
|