While this site called Lance Face featuring Lance Armstrong's head popping onto the heads of other does deliver some important financial messages from American Century Investments, one has to wonder what the connection is between Lance and this effort. If there is one, it's definitely a mystery. Oh wait, American Century Investments Founder Jim Stowers, Jr. had cancer too. That's it. Makes perfect sense. Before all you survivors get pissy about this assessment, I've been where Lance has so I'm allowed to make cancer jokes.
Like the emotion felt while watching the UK Department of Transport cell phone ad, these ads, which have been floating around since late 2005, from DDB Canada for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia's long-running CounterAttack don't-drink-and-drive campaign fill one with dread. Following the same sudden-shock approach the UK DOT ad used, two of the three commercial feature kids in a car driven by a drunk and a third features a guy talking about the negative aspects of drunk driving. All three ads have endings that while somewhat predictable, still shock. The ads are said to begin airing this summer. See all three here.
Adland points to a promotion filled with bouncing breasts that actually serves a purpose rather than to simply titillate. U.K. sport bra company Shock Absorber has created a site where woman can choose her cup size, a level of activity and then see the "activity" her breasts undergo in three side-by-side scenarios: nude, regular bra and sports bra. It's certainly a convincing argument for buying a sport bra unless you're the sort of woman that enjoys neck to stomach bouncing action.
Capturing a bit of last week's Future Marketing Summit in New York, coBRANDit's Owen Mack conducted a few video interviews with the likes of PSFK's Piers Fawkes, CP + B's Alex Bogusky, Barbarian Group's Benjamin Palmer, Amalgamated's Charles Rosen and Naked's Paul Woolmington. Each comment of where the future of marketing and advertising is headed.
Just so we're clear "hip" New York companies aren't the only ones giving away iPods, New Holland, PA-based farm equipment company New Holland will load up an iPod with pictures, audio and video from the corn and soybean convention, Commodity Classic, held this week in Anaheim, CA. Also loaded on the iPod will be the new CD from country singer Michael Peterson currently available only on the iPod and at New Holland dealerships. Not that's a seriously country-focused promotion. You can enter to win your country-powered iPod at New Holland's booth at the show or at the company's website.
OK so maybe this campaign grabs attention visually but does anyone playing/winning the Minnesota State Lottery want to look like a stupid, buck toothed gopher? Oh wait, that's pretty accurate. See more idiots here.
Culture Critic Bucky Turco points us to an article on Sucka Pants in which the author decries a Brooklyn store's use of "bike culture" in its store front windows and discusses the vandalism the store received by doing so. Call us jaded by years in the "we'll co-op anything for a buck" advertising industry but one does have to wonder why "bike culture" fanatics feel their culture is the only one that shouldn't get a commercial nod. The only reason a store, or any other retailer or brand for that matter, mimics a particular culture or trend is to make their offering relevant to the public. If no brand did that, every brand would still be stuck in the fifties imitating American Graffiti culture. No one wants their sacred culture commercialized but in a capitalist society, there's little chance a culture with any cred won't sooner or later be bitten by a brand desperate for commercial success. Oh, and by the way, roads were built for cars.
To promote its movie Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, a film sure to be laden with heavy-handed, left-wing global warming sentiment, Twentieth Century Fox has launch a little online game called Bling My Sid in which visitors are invited to makeover the film's Sid The Sloth, dressing him in a variety of wardrobes. From Punk to Player, Lounge Lizard to Rhinestone Cowboy, there are nine wardrobes to choose from. Players can save their creations to print, produce AIM/Buddy Icons and submit their Sid to the gallery for public vote. A Send to a Friend function and translation into ten languages has, apparently, led Twentieth Century to believe this little ditty will magically spread itself around the globe. UK agency Substance created the campaign.
A Canadian Olympics viewer watching the closing ceremonies on the country's CBC network saw the Golden Palace casino make another Olympic appearance. The first was during a men's curling event. Reportedly, a Golden Palace t-shirt-clad man appeared on stage alongside the Italian Olympic Chairman as he was speaking during the closing ceremony. While it may be tough, it's likely this guy will be edited out by the time the broadcast airs in America. Not that he achieved much as the Golden Palace logo wasn't completely visible during his appearance.
To counteract American's love for credit and denial of debt, the Homeownership Preservation Foundation had to demonstrate just how annoying debt can be in the only terms Americans can understand - annoyingly humorous television commercials. Addressing the 2.9 million home foreclosures that have occurred in the last five years, Minneapolis agency Colle+McVoy created two public service announcements that use annoyance to demonstrate just how annoying debt and it's result can be. The two spots, Loud Mouth and Annoying were directed by Brendan Gibbons of Los Angeles' Hungry Man Productions.
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