Young female online gamers are probably a good market for Gwen Stefani. She vibes kinda like a gamer, and her creepily coquettish Harajuku Lovers label has a decidedly Bejeweled-friendly aesthetic.
Soooo, from January 20 to February 1, Harajuku Lovers partnered with SPIL GAMES to organize an online scavenger hunt on GirlsGoGames.co.uk, a site targeted to casual girl gamers from ages 8-15. Users had to hunt down five different Harajuku girls/fragrances -- Baby, Love, Music, Lil' Angel, and G* -- on HLFragrance.com, then enter codes for each to win a shopping spree at Topshop.
Following up from that, Harajuku Lovers re-skinned GirlsGoGames between February 2 and February 4. Users could watch videos, learn the Harajuku Lovers theme song or play branded games that make it okay to seem jail-baity because everything is animated in pastel and written in bubble letters.
Example: Are you girly and sweet? Don't you just love yourself a pair of Mary Janes? Then by all means dive into Baby.
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Hello Kitty is the ultimate licensing whore. Her oblong, be-ribboned visage has been plastered onto everything from toasters to credit cards to vibrators -- er, massagers -- to brassiere.
Now you can find the world's most ubiquitous cat in your Happy Meal. Through February 26th, McDonald's is stuffing them with one of eight Sanrio watches.
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Last week we reviewed a St. Lukes ad for IKEA's PAX wardrobe, which wordlessly depicted women being jostled about in an ongoing quest for safe haven.
In response, zig sent us its take on PAX. "Garagetalk" airs in Canada and was adapted in Germany. The vibe's completely different, but it still ties PAX to women and our apparently insatiable need for ambient shoe space.
Easing a friend into her PAXed-out closet with a casual "Welcome to the Jane-zone" (wince!), one chick shows off her wardrobe space with the attitude men adopt over modded "bachelor" garages. In case you miss the cues, concluding text wryly reads, "Men have the garage. Women have the PAX wardrobe."
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Failing to observe this approach has already been mined dry by Nike and Dove -- among others -- Adidas launched "Me, Myself," a girl power campaign that rings like a modern-day sports riff off celebrated femme manifesto Our Bodies, Ourselves. The campaign release, for example, is heavy-laden with buzz words like distinctive, inspirational, individuality, confidence and -- our favourite -- intimate portraits.
WNBA MVP Candace Parker lent her face to the in-store/online program. Members of the fairer sex can submit "real" stories about their training struggles and successes on the website (where incidentally, you can also "mix and match outfits"!); three entrants will become the face of "Me, Myself" alongside Parker.
Parker synopsized the effort thus: "[Me, Myself] celebrates women of all ages and athletic abilities and shows that despite our struggles we can achieve our impossible."
Guess that's somewhat more productive than eating your feelings.
- Creatives Chris Yi and Jesse Epstein spent a month and $2000 producing three spots for that Doritos Super Bowl ad contest. Obviously they didn't make the cut, but hey, can you ever have too much material to compare your own to?
- AOL to cut 10% and forgo merit pay increases in '09. Join the club, guys.
- Coca-Cola's contribution to the Super Bowl: Heist. 'Tis cute.
- Print and TV ad tropes invade the online contextual ad space, and this is the kind of crap we get.
- Hey ambitious marketers, here's a radio controlled live beetle. Use it for something magical ... like whispering jingles into the ears of impressionable window-shoppers, Jiminy-Cricket style.
- One reason to spend $9, plus the popcorn fees.
- New energy drink! Syke. No, seriously though.
Sensing a recession isn't exactly an enabler for Jimmy Choos and Prada handbags, Saks Fifth Avenue takes on the marketing style of Communism ... and Stolichnaya.
The high-end department store tapped Shepard Fairey, architect of the familiar Obama Hope poster, to infuse worker's morale into its Spring 2009 "Want It!" campaign.
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Cyclists have it hard down under. All those hours pushing pedals literally chafes balls, which is funny from a distance but sobering enough that the condition requires an anti-irritant, aptly called "chamois cream."
To contribute to the well-being of fellow bikers, pro cyclist David Zabriskie developed a cream called DZ Nuts -- pronounced "deez nuts," a colloquial expression defined as "The large, sweaty, hairy dangling spheres of man-hood containing future illegitimate seeds that swing violently in the wind when slapped."
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I love rock n' roll. I will survive. I'm a hustler baby.
Why Tweet that profound, self-affirming lyric when you can rock it? Check out i/denti/tees. Each tee comes in its own album cover -- developed by agency POV -- and the ability to download any 10 iTunes tracks you want. (US residents only.)
Lyrics are printed on tees provided by EDUN LIVE, a charity started by Bono and his wife Ali, so a percentage of your purchase also goes to benefit sub-Saharan Africa.
All this for just $35!
Available at Hard Rock Cafes, where people are usually too drunk and/or high ("On life, man, on LIFE!") to notice price tags anyway. Also, Bill Green says Jennifer Aniston is serving as an unofficial brand evangelist. What other endorsement is there in life?
- A whiff of Hugo Boss Femme may put you in a self-adulating, decidedly Diddy state of mind.
- Twitter marketing toolbox. *twirls finger*
- Contemplating facial hair? Upload your likeness here. For Schick -- which may actually lose customers that may have otherwise grown mustaches out before realizing they looked like Super Mario. (And not in an awesome, sliding-through-the-magic-pipe kinda way.)
- Bob Knorpp contemplates the legal saga of the Bratz. Complete with at least three hooker jokes.
- This HP Mini 1000 is brought to you by Vivienne Tam. We find them semi-sassy.
- Hey Facebook, "your dreams of avarice are fucked."
- Just another world record-breaking stunt.
- Cab driver advertises MBA credentials to customers. One good thing you can say about this economy: it makes everyone a marketer.
Having failed (twice!) to woo young defectors with ads, Microsoft tries appealing to their unending quest for ironic shirts.
The so-called Softwear line of tees joins Crispin Porter + Bogusky's ongoing "I'm a PC" campaign. Common -- who already appears in ads for Microsoft's Zune -- infused the shirts with retro cred and his own '80s-inspired designs.
Variants include:
o The DOS Tangle: "The first logo you saw on a screen."
o The 101: "Learn to speak the language." Oooh, binary.
o The Misdemeanor: "Everyone deserves a second chance."
There's something the world needs now: mugshots of Bill Gates prowling the streets.
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