"Duardo's Brand," which has a UGC feel to it (don't tell Subway!) is Raging Artists' attempt to (possibly) accomplish two things for its client:
1. Associate Arturo Fuente Cigars with the elite Cuban crowd through its choice of talent, Duardo Cantana
2. Put cigars back in the domestic space -- into the mouths of men sitting around playing guitars, and men whose wives batter them senseless for smoking indoors
Or it might be an exercise in irony. Because it's kind of "ha-ha, laugh with this artist who's just like me and you" funny and sort of "ha-ha, laugh at this thrown together wannabe UGC crap" funny.
We don't really know.
Damn. Everyone's getting in on this presidential election thing. Now we have Svedka Vodka's Svedka_grl (yea, we noticed that screename-style thingy you did) launching a campaign to put a Fembot in the White House. That's all we need. A bunch of hot looking, drunken robots running our country. On second thought, that might not be so bad.
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Get ready for an explosion of cute. Yes, GAP has announced the winners of its casting call contest which selected four kids from a pool of 20 finalists which were selected from a pool of 800,000. The winners, which were determined from 500,000 votes cast by the public, were announced on the Rachael Ray show.
In partnership with Kodak, the GAP launched it casting call back in October 2007. One assumes we'll be seeing a lot of these cuties in the year to come.
Removing every last bit of fun and entertainment of Red Wig dude (love him or hate him) come two new spots (one, two) from Kirshenbaum Bond, its new work on the account. In these commercials, it's all about the product. Yea, we get a bit of the cute Wendy but for the most part, its food porn.
Who knows. Maybe these spot will get Wendy's back on track. At the least, people will know Wendy's sells food.
Damn, eBillme jumps fast on a trend. An hour after we heard about the Subway/Quiznos UGC-related lawsuit, eBillme jumped online and wrote a press release about the lawsuit in light of its previous Shopping Confessions contest and upcoming Valentine's Day contest.
Stats on the V-Day contest: submit videos on your best or worst Valentine's Day purchase by Feb 14. Prizes includes a 37-inch Toshiba LCD HDTV.
President and CEO Marwan Forzley, eBillme quickly added, is available to discuss user generated content and "help companies level the playing field," which we guess means "run a successful UGC contest while covering your ass."
According to The New York Times, Subway is inexplicably (as in pending lawsuit) pissed at Quiznos because of some "derogatory" user-generated videos that depict Subway unfavorably. Must see to believe (scroll down to view the big offender).
Some actual Quiznos ads, depicting people on the street choosing between the two brands, also made it into the lawsuit, but the big stars are the UGC entries from some contest Quiznos ran. Subway is also suing iFilm for running the contest.
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First Bacardi told us about the mysterious travellers of Murmansk Route. Then it said the mysterious travellers of Murmansk Route have something that will change our lives.
To get it, all we have to do is bid for a locked suitcase on eBay.
Not sold? Watch the video, which actually still won't win you unless you speak Spanish, and even then, odds remain 50/50.
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To prep us for our own game day (February 3!), SOLdesignfx for Allstate sent us a parable about an undervalued kicker who wins the game. Oh, and you also get to see the Allstate guy with the soothing voice. We haven't seen him since Allstate got all badass.
Sadly, he isn't featured in the other two ads -- "Statue," where two wankers hold their breath for a bronzed Bobby Bowden, and "Diner."
It's the traditional insurance ad premise: the unexpected can happen. Swaddle your peace of mind in the loving arms of Allstate.
CEO Alan Siegel of Siegel & Gale put together a manifesto of what brand messages each of the Election 2008 candidates are conveying. Among other things, John McCain is read as the "straight-talking rebel."
Oh, we cannot emphasize how painfully we winced when we heard "The MAC is BACK!" pouring out of New Hampshire. Can't politicans just leave rap -- and any music, really -- alone? Bulworth was a movie, not a career blueprint.
Hillary Clinton, Siegel adds, undermines her "Leading Brand" role by attacking "Challenger Brand" Barack Obama.
How very Coke vs. Pepsi. Just one more reason to avoid frothy drinks and frothy speeches. Read full text below.
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Match.com swears if in six months you don't live out a love story with someone from its site, you can have six more months of free service to make up for it.
Not all tell-worthy stories end happily though. Sometimes you get locked out or hosed -- which, now that we think about it, isn't nearly as bad a fate as this one.
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