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Most Interesting Man Tries to Stay Interesting

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Apart from the fact Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World conjures, somewhat, Charlton Heston's Moses (or is it George Parker?), he's well, just not that interesting in this second outing of the campaign. That's par for the course when a campaign initially breaks from the mold and then tries to maintain that break over time. What was once new and different now becomes "Oh, it's those weird Dos Equis ads again." which, in some respects, isn't such a bad thing in this era of continuously changing brand direction before the consumer has a chance to understand the initial direction.

Euro RSCG is behind the campaign which consists of three television spots which you can view here.

by Steve Hall    Aug- 1-08   Comments (4)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Creative Commentary

Diddy Burger King Ad Discriminates Against Fat People

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Wait, what? Is Diddy, P. Diddy, Puffy or whatever the hell he's now calling himself still a musician or has he completely sold out to marketers? It certainly seems so because the only place the guy seems to appear anymore is in commercials. Now he's doing one for Burger King in which his cartoonish, self-important, overinflated ego is on full display.

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by Steve Hall    Jul-29-08   Comments (1)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Bad, Celebrity, Creative Commentary

Ooo, Look! It's a Woman's Underwear Ad With...Women in Underwear!

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Unlike most accounts where a little bit of pre-concept research is always a good thing, working on a women's lingerie or underwear account requires nothing more than a Neanderthal mentality and the libido of a 16 year old high school kid. It's like the creative brief writes itself.

Hmm. Let's see. Ooo...I've got it. Dude, it's lingerie! We'll show the product! And we can get a shit ton of hot babes for the shoot! And all they'll be wearing is underwear and bras! Dude, this is gonna be hot! And we'll have them play some choreographed girl on girl patty cake so we can get a little jiggle effect going. Dude! Bitches fighting! That rocks!

by Steve Hall    Jul-25-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Commercials, Creative Commentary, Racy

Dude Crowd Surfs His Way to Renault Megane

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Up until the final tagline, "Your five senses prefer a Renault Magane" (which you have to listen to over and over to understand), this Brazilian commercial for the Renault Megane instills that sense of brotherly love you get when...well...you crowd surf your way home from work while some techno plays in the background.

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by Steve Hall    Jul-25-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Commercials, Creative Commentary, Good

Epoch Films Withdraws JCPenney 'Speed Dressing' From Cannes

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About as surprising as a traffic meeting on a Monday morning, Epoch Films, after talks with Cannes organizers, JCPenney and Saatchi & Saatchi, has decided to withdraw its Speed Dressing Cannes entry which was awarded a Bronze Lion. The ad, one of the best ever created for the clothing retailer since Saatchi & Saatchi won the account, was shot by Epoch films without, as all parties claim, the knowledge of JCPenney or Saatchi & Saatchi. It's not the first time a faux ad has been submitted, duped everyone and won but it has turned into one of the more high profile offenses.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-26-08   Comments (11)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Creative Commentary, Industry Events, Opinion

U.S. Cellular Brings Love to the World

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Oh for fuck's sake! Are you kidding me? "That's why we do more than just connect calls. We believe in connecting people." Seriously? Well, U.S. Cellular, if you are so great at connecting people and making the world a perfectly happy, feel-good place, why don't you dial up Osama Bin Laden, Kim Jong-il, Omar Al-Bashir, Pervez Musharraf, Than Shwe and the rest of the world's dictatorial idiots, feed them some of your feel-good crap and see if you can, in fact, help the world become a better place. That, at least, would be worthy of producing these sixty seconds of sugar-coated puffery.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-26-08   Comments (3)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Bad, Commercials, Creative Commentary

MySpace to Redesign. See Mock-Ups Here

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MySpace is redesigning its site, partly to make it more ad-friendly.

It also plans to improve nav, music and internal search, MySpaceTV (expect better embed/sharing options) and profile editing (kinda nifty).

Phase I of the redesign goes live June 18th. One advertiser bought all MySpace's ad real estate for that day. No word on who it is, but expect a major brand or an overhyped movie. (Film promotions for The Incredible Hulk are currently wreaking havoc on the homepage.)

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by Angela Natividad    Jun-13-08   Comments (2)    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Creative Commentary, Online, Opinion, Packaging, Trends and Culture

Life Changing Box For Sharp Aquos TV?

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The promise of the extraordinary. The surprise of something new. The power to bring change. It's... It's... It's... Life Changing Box, a Lowe-created site and Facebook game that involves a box, co-ordinated game play and prizes. Beginning today and running for a month, no one's saying who it's for right now so, if you care, you're just going to have to play the game and wait.

It's all fairly intricate but here are some overview points from the release:

  • There are 10 boxes total in the game
  • To gain possession of a box, users use a currency called a Touch
  • All players get 24 "Touches" per day
  • Each Touch enters the player into a Round
  • At the beginning of each Round, the box will randomly jump to one of the players who entered that Round
  • The player given the box holds it for the entirety of the Round, which lasts between 30 minutes and 8 hours, randomly decided by the application
  • If the box doesn't open in a Round for the player, a new Round will begin and everyone must Touch the box again to participate
  • 20 prizes will be awarded with values ranging from $400 to $14,000
  • If you invite a friend to the application and they win, you win a duplicate prize

Let's hope it is actually life changing and not some lame promotion for some lame brand. All the details are here, the box is here and the game is here.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-12-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Creative Commentary, Games, Online, Social

Lady Lashes Out Against Ubiquitous Yogurt Advertising

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We take it for granted that most ads are full of shit most of the time, but every once in awhile you need to take a whole industry to task. This video does that for the woman-targeting yogurt peddlers.

"Yogurt eaters come from every race, but just one socio-economic class: the class that wears gray hoodies. It's that 'I have a Masters, but then I got married' look!"

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by Angela Natividad    Jun-10-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Consumer Created, Creative Commentary, Good, Spoofs, Trends and Culture, Video

Rhea Scott Talks Music Videos, Little Minx, Exquisite Corpse and Fresh Underpants

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I recently got to sit down with Rhea Scott, Ridley Scott's daughter-in-law. (A breathy PR guy related that trivia to me about four times, which is why I mention it in the VERY. FIRST. SENTENCE.)

Rhea once headed the music video department at Propaganda. 10 years ago she started Little Minx, a production company focused on turning ad directors into filmmakers. From what I gathered in the film reels, directors are encouraged to treat each ad like a miniature manifesto. (It probably also helps to be a surrealist art fan.)

Little Minx is able to provide the necessary creative resources -- read: king-sized budget, the ideal artist's sponsorship -- through parent company RSA.

Rhea says the company was named for her second daughter, "the ultimate little minx" and the child actress in "Come Wander with Me," part of a promotional project called Exquisite Corpse.

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by Angela Natividad    Jun- 9-08   Comments ()    Bookmark and Share     
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Creative Commentary, Specialty

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