Our spies tell us StrawberryFrog has created an online campaign for MSN and Sprite called Exposure. It's a site the agency created to highlight work from three different groups of kids: graf artists, a basketball team and a band. Each person is making a video (or it's being made for them) about who they are, what they do, what they stand for, how they think. The video are then edited and placed on the site. We're told new content will be added to the site over the next six weeks. It's sort of a cross between reality TV, documentary-style video and a blog of sorts. Each person has an MSN Spaces blog as well.
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Copyranter points us to Gawker today where the New York gossip site has, with the click of a button, allowed its readers to banish all ads from the site except for evian water who is sponsoring a detoxed version of the site for two weeks. Once the button is clicked, all ads disappear except for some subtle mention of evian, some soothing snow-capped graphics and a means for those who publish an RSS feed of their site to "detox" their own RSS feed. The sponsorship was done in partnership with Mediavest and Feedburner. This is what the Adrants RSS feed looks like "detoxed."
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This MySpace page, set to launch Wednesday, created by Deep Focus and promoting the news season of HBO's Entourage is about the most tweaked out MySpace page we've ever seen. In fact, except for the MySpace URL, you wouldn't know you were on a MySpace page. While other companies have co-opted MySpace for commercial gain, this is, by far, the most elaborate we've seen. The page is still in the test stage with many non-working links but there's a contest that calls for entrants to create a MySpace page featuring the member's own "entourage" and then publicize it through the member's network of friends. Not a bad way to get HBO's Entourage message in front of a ton of MySpace members. The motivation to create a page comes in the form of a chance to win a car four each of the four people in the member's entourage. Other prizes include trips to LA with $1,000, Xbox 360's, Samsung cell phones and Entourage DVDs.
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Those cheeky United Kingdom citizens love their meat and hate PETA so much they've gone out and created a site called Meatylicious to drum up support for what they hope to be the world's biggest ever virtual march to celebrate meat. The site's got all sorts of fun meat facts and a "Meatyfest" with includes such gems as "Eat with your mouth open so others can enjoy it," "A man with no meat is no man at all" and "A good steak is like a sunny day: bloody lovely." PETA will love this. The work was created by London agency Grand Union.
While FishNChimps claims this is a new viral from Marmite, we could swear we've seen this poor mother before. Since we can't remember anything past today, we consulted the always reliable Adrants archive, didn't find it so, of course, we are, in fact, deeming this new. Maybe we're just suffering some sort of deja vu or maybe it really is new. Enough of that. The spot features a new mom sitting in her dark kitchen eating a piece of Marmite covered toast while nursing her baby. Suddenly, the baby has a problem. I big problem. A problem that, because this baby is breast feeding, thereby sucking down the very same nutrients mom's putting in her mouth, makes us wonder if eating Marmite is actually a good thing.
In February of this year, a blog called Spacecadetz launched. The purpose of the blog is to highlight some of the best MySpace content from profiles to videos to new features to events. Currently, the blog has an interview with Al Cabino, the man behind a petition that asks Nike to bring back McFlys, the sneakers featured in the Michael J. Fox movie Back to the Future II. Cabino, who's coined the term "sneaker activism" doesn't want to wait until 2015, the year rumor has it Nike will, perhaps, introduce McFlys to the public. Cabino wants the kicks now and has launched a vigorous campaign to get Nike's attention.
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This viral webcam video, created to promote the Lynx/Axe ClickMore site, began with promise then devolved into a stupid, cheesy, illustration of stereotypical webcam/online video antics. The premise has a woman creating a webcam video for a guy she met the night before. Since she forgot to leave her number with him, she plans to do it in the video by doing a striptease, slowly revealing each number hidden underneath a piece of clothing. After that, it goes downhill fast turning into a ridiculous lingerie/cheerleader/stripper/pillow fight-fest. Intamacy would have prevailed nicely here but the creators chose to go for cheese factor. Or, maybe it was intended to be ironic all along. Either way, this could have been so much better.
OK, we're back from ad:tech San Francisco, their biggest to date, and we've got piles of backlogged bits for you so here we go, once again. machine gun style.
Exopolis has created a funky website for the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival. It's a busy page with all kinds of things to do but that's what the kids love.
The Dairy Farmers of Canada have launched Mobiloke, karaoke for the the cell phone. It's part of a campaign to make milk hip.
Apparently, this is to promote Honda's new civic hybrid and references London's congestions charge.
There's a new film coming called Art School Confidential staring John Malkovich which proves to look very weird but probably not far off from real art school.
Zugara has created another site for Reebok's "I Am What I Am" campaign. Each country's version of the site will feature different athletes and artists specific to that region. For example the U.S site (www.rbk.com/us/iawia) features Mark Zuppan and Carolina Kluft while the U.K. site (www.rbk.com/uk/iawia) features Amir Khan and Ryan Giggs.
Somebody's filed some sort of patent for an Advertising Box that seems to make it easier for marketers to create online ads and for consumers to change and interact with them.
Oxygen Network is promoting it's new Ivana Young man reality dating show with a cheesy video featuring Ivana Trump.
We have no idea what this is but we're sure it has to do with some sort of heartwarming organ donor list thing. We could be wrong.
Ad archive site Ads of the World has launched a forum section.
Lethal has launched a campaign in London for the Honda Civic Hybrid that involves the hanging of air fresheners from trees around the city to connote the vehicles environmentally friendly emissions.
Allegiant Air is allowing its planes to be wrapped with logos and commercial messaging. InterAir Media is behind the move.
Here's an ad from a tech retailer called TekServe that used $60,000 worth of iPods dominos-style to deliver its message.
Dieste Harmel & Partners has taken Gold at the 2006 FIAP show in Buenos Aires for an Anheuser-Busch spot titled "Mini Mouth."
For you art directors with some spare time on your hands, a site called TheBroth is a place where multiple players can move 1,000 colorful tiles to form collaborative mosaic artworks.
It's not exactly the most beautifully produced commercial, but this PSA advocates the hiring of those with disabilities and makes the argument that doing so is better for all involved.
Apparently, Subaru felt the need to respond to the VW My Fast ads.
It seems queers need financial advice too.
At ad:tech, ad serving company Atlas had a Truth Booth into which conference attendees would share their inner secrets which would be edited and emailed back to them. Wexley School for Girls created.
Here is a seriously whacked video promoting a cereal called Jelly Filled Frosted Sugar Balls. Actually, it's a twisted promotion for Mercury's twisted The Neverything.
We have no idea what this is. We're too lazy to find out. But, someone sent it to us so it must be something. Oh, it has something to do with advertising during the World Cup in Germany.
This thing promotes Sprite 3G...and a woman lays an egg. Don't ask, just watch.
This ad does a really nice job demonstrating the human touch Toyota imbues on its vehicles. A little too much human touch for us though.
Jeff Kling has a new book coming out. We think.
Ford' Your Ticket 2 Drive has Music 2 Drive 2. Good tunes.
Captains of Industry has created a podcast series for its client Arbor Networks that brings radio-style drama to the podcast. It's all about securing the net.
No doubt there are a multitude of political angles to Cape Wind's desire to place a bunch of giant windmills off the coast of Cape Cod the generate energy but this video from Greenpeace showing Senator Ted Kennedy paying whakamole with the windmills because they might alter the pristine view he has from his Hyannis mansion is, well, just funny. Apparently, Kennedy has buried an amendment into a Coast Guard bill that, if approved, would kill the Cape Wind project.