Numa Numa Guy Gets Down with GEICO Gecko

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Remember Gary Brolsma, the Numa Numa Guy? Of course you do. Hoping to tie his lovable lip-syncing magic to a big brand, The Martin Agency tapped him to produce "Numa Numa Guy with GEICO," an amateur-style vid where he sings Somebody's Watchin' Me while GEICO's trademark gecko dances behind him.

What makes the video awesome is you don't really notice the gecko at first. But as you acclimate to the context, suddenly you're like... "WTF is that thing in the terrarium, shimmying in the background?"

And then you LOL, just a little.

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by Angela Natividad    Mar-24-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Good, Online, Social, Trends and Culture, Video



Royal Caribbean Gives VIP Status to Gushy Reviewers; Gets Spanked by Blogosphere

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Okay. Let's nail this down once and for all: DO NOT start a lavish, perks-heavy club of people -- in this case, Royal Caribbeans' "Royal Champions" -- whose objective is to plug your company hither and yon without revealing affiliation.

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by Angela Natividad    Mar-19-09    
Topic: Brands, Online, Social, Worst



Razorfish/Moroch Turn Travel into Contagion.

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Visit ihavethebug.com to take a quiz and find out whether you've got the "travel bug." The exercise -- short, playful and mildly entertaining -- serves two purposes: to flatter you and drive you to the Travel Channel. (If so inclined, note requisite Facebook tie-in at bottom left. What, don't you want all your friends to know you've got "excellent gumption, chutzpah"?)

Internet stuff put together by Razorfish. The Travel Bug TV spot, orchestrated by Moroch, is done in a faux-serious Big Pharma tone. You've got sufferers, playfully agonized; you've got gratuitous shots of people running on beaches. The Travel Channel's the cure, but like all drugs, you're warned it may only aggravate the symptoms.

Ad's expectedly corny, even a little dated in its humour; but the site quiz ties the gimmick back to Travel Channel shows well enough. At the very least, it sparked discussion: last night me and a friend were all, "What exactly is a sexy beach?" Verdict's still out.

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by Angela Natividad    Mar-19-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Online, Social, Television



NASA Collabo: A Microcosm of the New Media Renaissance

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Musicians Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon joined forces under the name NASA (North America/South America) to release their first album, The Spirit of Apollo, which has been in-progress since '03.

Promotion strikes me as general and disorganized, but the pair has many talented hands behind it. According to the pressie, the Apollo album was conceived "with the righteous goal of bringing people together through music and art" -- as a result, it's heavy with surprising collaborations and interesting visual media.


Tom Waits growls over Kool Keith, Karen O taunts while Ol' Dirty Bastard gives shout-outs to Wu Tang and N.A.S.A from the grave, and David Byrne, Chuck D and others expound on the evils of "Money."

Other collaborators include Method Man, Seu Jorge, Kanye West, Santogold, George Clinton. Then there's the charmed director team: Syd Garon, Paul Griswold, 3Legged Legs and Flourescent Hill.

Artists that donated paint and pens to the animated music videos include Shepard Fairey, Sage Vaughn, The Date Farmers, Mark Gonzales, Marcel Dzama and Splunny. Some also contributed original album cover designs, so CD buyers get five interchangeable covers per copy.

I realize this is a lot going on so I'm gonna just show you stuff. Here's the latest release, People Tree with David Byrne, Chali 2na (from J-5!) and art by Marcel Dzama. It's magically delicious.

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by Angela Natividad    Mar-12-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Social, Trends and Culture, Video



Diggnation Hosts to Appear on Jimmy Fallon Tonight

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So who says this new-fangled social media, web 2.0 stuff doesn't work? Not Diggnation's Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht who, on January 16th interviewed Jimmy Fallon, will, in return, appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight.

Watch them. They're good. But if you miss it and are going to SXSW, you can see them do a live show at the Bigg Digg Shindigg at Stubb's Saturday night beginning at 6:30PM.

by Steve Hall    Mar-11-09    
Topic: Social, Television



Brands Pay to Have Tweets Displayed on Mashable

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Mashable has debuted a new advertising opportunity called The Twitter Brand Sponsors Module. Brands can pay to have their tweets syndicated into the module which is displayed in the right hand column of the site. Mashable will also include one charity gratis.

It's an interesting idea and yet another of the hundreds of Twitter monetization ideas floating around out there that, amazingly, Twitter has yet to adopt.

The module was developed exclusively for Mashable by Dan Zarella.

by Steve Hall    Mar- 6-09    
Topic: Social, Weblogs



JWT's Anxiety Blog, Ogilvy's Recession Salve, Revisiting 'Like a Prayer'

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- Flashback to Madonna's banned Like a Prayer ad for Pepsi.

- Wolff Olins brings minimalist flickr magic -- and a forum for inquiry -- to "scientific" cosmetic brand Living Proof.

- Tracking (corporate accounts on) Twitter.

- The Guardian makes good observations about Twitter (scroll down to the bulletpoints).

- Ogilvy-branded solutions to a recession. Take that hype with a few spoonfuls of salt. Hat tip to our favourite mad man.

- JWT launches a blog called Anxiety Index.

- ScapeNation: another tween-targeting web destination, brought to you by Red Tettemer.



Ford to Give Away 100 Fiestas Social Media Style

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The ever photogenic Julia Roy and her agency, Undercurrent, are working with Ford on a program called Fiesta Movement. The automaker plans to give away 100 Ford Fiestas for six months complete with free gas, insurance, parking and a concierge service. The lucky 100 will be sent on "cool monthly missions" not unlike AT&T's Lost in America.

And oh yes, they must document their travels for public consumption. After all, it's the social media thing to do, right? And, yes, there will be tweets.

by Steve Hall    Mar- 5-09    
Topic: Agencies, Brands, Promotions, Social



Cathay Pacific Goes Video for Hong Kong Rugby Sevens

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Cathay Pacific has teamed with the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens to hype the event at which teams from all over the world will compete at the Hong Kong Stadium March 27-29. The promotion aims to add some humor to how participating countries prepare for the event. And, yes, there's a consumer-generated effort where people can win tickets to next year's event. Here's how it works:

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by Steve Hall    Mar- 5-09    
Topic: Campaigns, Consumer Created, Social, Video



Legs Clamps 'Net, Old-School Twitterati, Thinky-Thinky Print Pieces

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- Creatives on Craigslist. Yeah, it's sad. But not as sad as disseminating bulky PDFs about creatives on Craigslist.

- Legs, the content folk responsible for Diesel's "Pete the Meat Puppet," just launched its own website. Careful, desk cogs: it's ornamented with naked people, floating slowly about at extremely close range. (Like, close enough to see corns and butt freckles. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.)

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by Angela Natividad    Mar- 4-09    
Topic: Agencies, Brands, Campaigns, Guerilla, Social, Sponsorship