Adam Rifkin is trying to promote his new movie, Look, an examination of how pervasive video surveillance cameras have become and the sometimes shocking footage they capture. The movie's producers intended to mail postcards with scenes from the movie and the copy "Will you be watching? May 5, 2009" on the back.
One of the postcards carries an image from the movie which shows a man having his way with a woman in a storage closet. Technically, there's no nudity but the Post Office has called the promotional piece "obscene" and won't allow it to be mailed.
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Bikinis. Cheerleaders. Baby oil. And a slip and slide. What's not to love about that combination? Not much but this is advertising we're talking about here so there's gotta be a product in here somewhere. Hmm. Where is it? Oh, there it is. Yogisip, a South African drinkable yogurt. Yea, there it is.
So what does a drinkable yogurt have to do with girls in bikinis throwing themselves down a slip and slide? When the baby oil and water supply run out, you will have your answer. Watch.
And watch the hundreds of other videos submitted to this video competition which asks people to show how the drink keeps them going all day long.
Want to rain down some destruction on a friend? Or an enemy? Head over to the Trail of Destruction, a promotional site for the DVD release of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
It's pretty basic. A send to a friend thing where use the movie's trailer footage to create a customized trailer that shows your friend's stuff being destroyed. Well, that's a pleasant though, huh?
But sometimes you feel angry and you need this sort of thing to work it all out. So if you're bummed, sad or having a bad week, this is for you.
Heh. The Cleveland Indians invite local natives to "join the tribe" with a series of Brokaw-brokered bus wraps that people can autograph. Neat idea; don't know if it'll generate more loyalty to the Indians, but maybe it'll hike up sales for Sharpie.
With help from digital agency Holler, footwear brand Kickers is launching an online comedy sketch series called "Random Bandits," which features characters from TV show Modern Toss and guest voice-overs from the UK's The Office.
The effort'll run for three months, beginning in the first week of April, and will "send up everything from entertainment, popular culture and even social networks." Hope you're equipped with that slapstick Brit wit. You'll definitely need it for this dive back into MySpace.
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To promote its own agency merits, The Gate Worldwide produced a Hit List of Sacred Cows (pdf) it will happily execute on your behalf.
Irksome ethical heifers include "Marketing should be judged by sales," "Teams create the best solutions," "Success breeds success," and -- our personal favourite -- "The customer is always right." (We'd kill that shit ourselves. With a rusty scimitar.*)
The Hit List is going out to CMOs, along with the following message: "If any of these sacred cows are roaming your office, don't worry. The Gate Worldwide will help you kill them" -- followed by a name and a direct line you can call. Nice touch.
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Since you're probably a postmodern hipster, it's highly likely you love yourself some Flight of the Conchords.
Well, that's cool, we do too.
To promote Season 2 of the show, HBO partnered with Deep Focus to launch the Flight of the Conchords Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece. It's about as grand as it sounds, and one-time creators of fan fiction will probably relish the opportunity to reinterpret FotC's "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" with their own wincey music videos.
And they are admirably wincey. (Okay, maybe not as much as that one time Jemaine dressed up like Labyrinth Bowie and appeared to Bret in his dreams.) Fan or not, feel free to relish in this most awkward pool of self-conscious exhibitionism.
According to Deep Focus, Facebook outreach generated about 470 comments and about 5400 "likes." The two top videos were edited into a single mumbo-jumbo one and incorporated into a Flight of the Conchords ep -- and yeah, that's on cable TV, man.
See Final Fansterpiece below.
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Levi's has partnered with Dazed & Confused for a window display competition. This is for the Carnaby Street store in London. In the event that your blood, sweat and tears make it to the store window, your work will be featured in the June issue of Dazed & Confused, and you'll also win a token, if paltry, 501 pounds.
For that much, they're probably not getting the Five on Fifth treatment. But sometimes people surprise you in exchange for a little limelight.
More about the Carnaby Street display contest here.
Last weekend Sony Ericsson converted a number of London-based Carphone Warehouses into floral installations, where mothers could get free flowers in honor of Mother's Day.
The gig was a promotion for the W595 Sakura handset, which Sony's trying to position as "the perfect alternative 'floral' gift for Mother's Day." (The phone's outfitted with a cherry blossom design and is, in fact, quite festive.) It also hired a "floriographer" to school moms and kids alike on what flowers to choose -- and which to avoid -- on this most hallowed of holidays.
Top flowers to pick/avoid are below. For what it's worth, they illuminate the subconscious reason guys are always asking whether we like orchids.
And why would you give someone dead leaves?
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This week in Los Angeles, El Pollo Loco will deluge ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC with a fresh wave of ads -- toting its $0.69 Taco al Carbon, among other cheap fare -- right around primetime.
Don't wince: the campaign's being called Family Stimulus Deals, and El Pollo Loco CEO Steve Carley is front and center. Ads are expectedly political in nature, the kind of work you'd expect to see from a Senate member-to-be, except they shill chicken instead of community roadwork. Funny thing is, for a spread so riddled with shticks the whole thing falls flat.
Sometimes using your CEO just doesn't cut it. And it's a bit late to riff off the Stimulus Plans circulating the Gov like so many pigeons.
See "Gracias," a dubbed Spanish ad, by Ideas; others, including English-language ones, are on the Official El Pollo Loco YouTube site.
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