Ads:
Packaging Girlhood lists the best and worst 2006 marketing campaigns aimed at girls and their sometimes less-than-savvy guardians.
Worst includes the Dora the Princess campaign for turning an educational show into a stock purveyor of pretty-in-pink stereotypes. The Bratz Party Plane with juice bar also made the cut.
We always thought Bratz' eclipse over Barbie apt. Barbie was inspired by a German doll named Lilli, actually meant for adult males. That our 21st-century improvement over the Nordic sex kitten was a multi-ethnic series of skanks with DSL lips just kills us.
The list for Best include the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty whose crowning glory was the oft-spoofed Evolution ad of '06, and the transformation of Super Mario's Princess Peach into an entity capable of making her own rescues.
So cheers to real girls who say no lip gloss and aren't afraid to stomp in puddles.
The Consumerist is hosting a survey to determine the best fake marketing blog for 2006. Contestants include McDonald's for its 4Railroads and Mcdmillionwinner flogs, Wal-mart for Walmarting Across America and Sony for All I Want For Xmas Is A PSP. Currently, Sony has the most votes for worst fake blog of 2006. Check out the survey and share your thoughts.
American Greetings, with help from B.L. Ochman, is running a blog ad campaign on 80 blogs to promote last minute holiday card and family letter ideas. Each of the ads, which can be seen on Cute Overload, Woman Diary, GetOutdoors and others, points to American Greeting example site such as this and this. The campaign is said to be doing extremely well. In fact, we know it is, we just can't tell you exactly how well.
- Verizon's Giant's Stadium text message contest suffers from bad "can you hear me now?" reception.
- Looks like the pre-holiday layoffs are rolling in. Time Inc. just laid off 27 from its consumer marketing unit reports MediaWeek.
- If you just couldn't get enough of the fake Sony PSP blog, The Consumerist saved the entire site and reuploaded it to humiliate Sony even further.
- coBRANDit's Owen Mack attended the recent Word of Mouth Marketing Association conference in Washington DC last week and created several video interviews.
- IQ Interactive singing heads sing Christmas carols.
- Who knew? USA Today says the wise-ass Windex bird commercial was the most-liked ad in 2006.
- AdMashup, the site that collects submitted ad mashups was featured in the 2006 Advertising Age Book of Tens.
If you thought the blogosphere was limited to hipsters, cool-hunting businesses and 12-year-olds, you were horribly wrong. Winter (yes! That most frigid of seasons) just started its very own blog, Winter is Cool. Guess we couldn't have named it better ourselves...
And to push its right to the 2.0 pie, it's got an agency too - AgencyNext out of Massachusetts. Read an interview with the strangely defensive season here. - Contributed by Angela Natividad
Since so many clueless marketers such as Coke, McDonald's, Walmart and others seem to have tremendous difficulty accepting the fact people absolutely hate being tricked and duped online and can't seem to manage the backlash properly, Adrants, today, has launched the Fake Blog Apology service. For any marketer who finds themselves at the mercy of forum freaks, blog purists and righteous cause group watchdogs, we promise to create a public apology devoid of marketing and PR babble that is contrite and actually reflects the honest acknowledgment of your idiotic mistake. To take advantage of this important, face-saving service, send an email to idiot@adrants.com. You'll be in good hands.
OK. We'll say this one more time. Are all you marketers listening? Good. There's a big difference between a teaser campaign and one that maliciously hides it's purpose for long periods of time. And, on top of that, denies its true mission when it's found out. What the hell are we talking about? Take, for example, the teaser billboard. It's usually some irreverent play on words and witty imagery that's then reveled to be part of a larger campaign a couple weeks later. Now take fake blogs. You've heard of them. Edelman knows all about them. They are the things marketers seem to think are the holy grail of this new social media thing. Let's get down with our customers. Let's "join the conversation." Trouble is, a fake blog - one that pretends (badly) to be all hip hop on our ass - is like an idiot that shows up at a black tie event wearing American Eagle cargo shorts and a t-shirt. The natural reaction to that is, "Who the fuck is that idiot?"
more »
We have no idea who's behind this (cough, Animax) or what it's purpose is but we really don't care. It's always funny to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonators poke fun at the man and this site is full of cartoonish videos that do just that.
It took us a while to wade through the blather-filled press release from Scratch Marketing that led with the headline, "Word of Mom," and went on to talk about how Cuisinart and Urban Moms had teamed to "build a relationship with mothers by offering unique, relevant and personal opportunities for moms across Canada to interact with the Cuisinart brand" before we realized it was all about the launch of another brand-sponsored blog. OK, we're jaded but why does the meat of the matter always have to be so slathered with marketing babble rather than a few clearly descriptive sentences the average human being can understand?
How about this: "Canadian mom site Urbanmoms launched Kitchen Party, a blog sponsored by Cuisinart that will offer recipes moms can make using their food processors. Along with a downloadable recipe book filled with recipes for newborns, the blog wil also give moms what they really need after a long day with their screaming babies: blender drinks." Much simpler, right?
Since its seems some companies think it's just fine to pay bloggers to write positive stuff about companies without disclosure, Jim Turner has offered up yet another blog advertising model that mirrors the logomania of NASCAR. He's kidding of course. Of course, we thought PayPerPost was kidding too when they announced their bribe-a-blogger business model.
|
|
