Acknowledging the lowly state of the lonely, unread book collecting dust on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and Borders as kids instead spend hours playing video games, obsessing over MySpace, chatting on AIM and blogging on Xanga, Random Hose Children's Books has teamed with The Book Standard and announced the Teen Book Video Awards. It's a contest in which college students create virally-intentioned :30 videos, similar to movie trailers, which will help Random House promote books through various web outlets and over Sprint's MSpot.
Random House has selected three books for the contest including The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray and How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. Oddly, they're all bestsellers. One might think Random House would want to promote books that, well, haven't sold so well yet. Hey, we just write about this stuff.
With nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon, we decided to follow a link under a really crappy Jeep spoof commercial on YouTube to morbeck's Biggest Video Response Chain Ever thing. We sometimes lead a very sheltered and quarantined life here in the Adrants high rise because, well, we're just too busy finding trivial advertisms and time wasters for you to enjoy so, we end up spending 24/7 trolling the Internet for crap like this that makes you wonder why the human race has nothing better to do that act like an idiot in front of a webcam. Oh wait. Sorry, I mean join the social ecocosm, and pump out paradigm-shifting consumer-generated media which, according to A-list bloggers, is transforming the world and causing marketers to drool uncontrollably like a male ad slut watching a Flirt Vodka ad.
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Hmm. Well it's not like anyone didn't see this one coming. As soon as we woke up this morning, we saw that Ariel, who had her own eloquently negative opinion on the subject, sent us an electronic fist bump to let us know Agency.com had pulled out of the Subway pitch. The reason apparently, is related to a conflict with another piece of business the agency was pitching. Right. Agency.com claims the video debacle had nothing to do with its decision to pull out of the pitch with a spokesperson telling Ad Week in typical face saving fashion, "Our decision was based solely on this conflict of interest." Yes, there's only so many fist bumps a single agency can handle at one time. We guess everyone can't roll big all the time.
glossy's Shannon Stephaniuk tells us this little video from Three Legged Legs was named Best Animation Tuesday night at the Global Student Animation Awards. Intentionally or unintentionally, the video mirrors a children's book, the name of which we can't place right now The Lorax, and illustrates how dirty mankind chews up the earth's resources until nothing is left and then moves on to its next target.
Here's a beyond dumb but maybe not so much promotional video for Nuts magazine sent to us by FishNChimps which touts its circulation superiority over competing magazine Zoo by featuring a striping females who begins her disrobing with "I've got a figure I want to reveal to you." That figure, of course, isn't hers. It's the circulation figure for Nuts which is greater than that of Zoo's. But hey, women who take their clothes off always seem to attract attention and since its an editorial edict here at Adrants to cover anything involving women who get naked, we figured (ouch. unintentional pun) we'd better tell you about it.
A site called Will Video For Food has put together a handy list for those thinking of wading into the cesspool known as viral video. The list, called Seven Deadly Sins of Advertising Viral Video, uses plenty of examples to back up the sins which include Make a white and brown cow. Pretend your not advertising. Spend a fortune on production. Tell consumers instead of engage them. Do a video contest because everyone else is. Set unrealistic conversion metrics. And throw in the towel and decide to just advertise around viral video. We'd add an eighth: Don't call you efforts viral until they become viral.
Tick, tick, tick, That's the sound of the clock counting the time it takes Starbucks lawyers to get angry, contact YouTube and ask them to yank this psuedo-frappucino commercial that compares the cost of a "freakin delicious" frappucino to feeding a starving kid in Sudan for a week but that advocates opting for the frappucino instead. Consumer-Created Media at it's finest! Except when the table is turned on the brand.
B.L. Ochman reports Jane Magazine has launched a social media-like campaign that includes a blog, a video, a forum, voting and more, all to, well, find 29 year old Sarah DiMuro a date so she can lose her virginity before she turns 30. Yes, this is how we promote magazine readership in the age of social media. But, as in with the cool kids as this is, Ochman points out they forgot the MySPace page, the eBay auction and Second Life.
At this moment MTV's Video Music Awards show is nine days, two hours, 45 minutes and 28 seconds away. We know that from the countdown clock atop a newly launched site/blog/map/video extravaganza which is loaded with all sorts of goodies. There's videos of the artists, an interactive map that lets visitors "spy" on artists' hang outs with an interactive map, an app called a "Vidget" (likely a customizes RSS reader) which delivers new content to the desktop, a list of pre-VMA events in the city, promotional discounts to area restaurants, a daily sweepstakes and subscription giveaways to Urge. It aims to put the entire city
Like a bunch of ten year old boys playing with the circuit breaker in the basement, Brewtron, Defender of Beer was created by some guys as the perfect drinking buddy. Oh, and to rebrand Icehouse beer to 21-35 year old men because 36 year olds don't drink beer and would rather play with a woman than a robot. But anyway, Dennis Digital created the site for this Icehouse/Maxim.com partnership. If you're tired of catfight style beer ads, you might like this one.
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