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AllTel Sucks In New Customers With Contest

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AtomFilms and Alltell have teamed to launch a new contest in which people can submit videos shot on mobile phones to win between $1,000 and $5,000 as well as distribution of their video on AtomFilms. Of course the contest, Are You Circle Worthy, promotes Alltel's My Circle calling plan which is similar to the old MCI Friends and Family plan.

by Steve Hall    Jun-16-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Mobile/Wireless, Online



Video Conference, Gay Cause Keeps Adrants Busy Thursday

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Perhaps you wondered why there were no stories on Adrants Thursday. Likely, you could care less but I'm going to tell you anyway. I spent the day at the BDI Online video conference held at the Microsoft Center at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. The focus of the conference was, as the title indicates, video and how marketers can use it to extend their marketing efforts online.

The conference was packed with knowledgeable people like CBS Interactive's Larry Kramer and MSN's Todd Herman. Larry is very bullish on web video and said the network's March Madness online video "experiment" was a success, brought in revenue and taught the network a lot about online video as a partner channel to broadcast. As some feared, the online "broadcast" of March Madness did not detract at all from the network's ratings for the traditional broadcast of the tournament.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-16-06    




The King Hooks Up With New Ad Babe

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Shannon Stephaniuk of Toronto-based Glossy got to be queen for a day when she met up with the man in the strange mask who was in town shooting his latest commercial with the famed Perlorian Brothers. She had some time to hang with the King and get a few pictures. Since the King was dumped by Brooke Burke, maybe he's moving in on Shannon now. She is pretty cute after all.

by Steve Hall    Jun-16-06    
Topic: Brands, Strange, Weblogs



Couple Gets Advertisers to Pay For Wedding

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What do two people working in the marketing and advertising business do when they marry each other? They rent a baseball stadium, negotiate sponsorship deals with 1-800 Flowers, Spirits, Harlem's Grandma's Secrets, Wedding Plaza and Red Carpet, print 8,000 sponsor-branded wedding programs and hold a press conference to promote the whole thing. That's exactly what Long Island radio station sales manager Caroline Fischer and consultant Dave Karpen did for their upcoming wedding at the Brooklyn Cyclones stadium in front of 8,000 people. Now that's how to pay for a wedding!

by Steve Hall    Jun-14-06    
Topic: Events, Good, Sponsorship



Hamster Sucking Mom A Good Parent

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kirshenbaum bond + partners along with Tool of North America director Sam Cadman have created a new PSA campaign for Collaboration to AdoptUsKids, a cooperative agreement between The Children's Bureau, Administration for Children & Families, the US Department of Health & Human Services and the Adoption Exchange Association. The four spots focus on human imperfection to let prospective parents know they don't have to be perfect to adopt a child. The spots can be viewed here, here, here and here. They're good.

by Steve Hall    Jun-14-06    
Topic: Campaigns, Commercials, Good



Sex With Babies Doesn't Prevent One From Getting HIV

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Kevin Faddis points us to yet another odd Zambia-based Harvey Tiles billboard which reads, "A roof without HARVEY TILES can't make your mind free the same as sex with a baby can't cure HIV/AIDS." Initially, one might react to this buy saying...oh...WTF but there's a reason behind the choice of words on the billboard. The man who wrote the copy explained on an ESPN site saying, "There is a myth some people believe that if you have sex with a virgin, you are bound to be safe from AIDS. It's a rumor that started up here about a year ago. And then they started bringing people in to the police because they had been sleeping with babies. The slogan is to remind people not to sleep with babies. The owner sells tiles and, at the same time, he educates people."

OK, then. Gross but, then again, it's a different world in Zambia than it is in many other parts of the world and if it takes a shocking headline like this to stop people from having sex with babies then we say "good job" Harky Tiles.

by Steve Hall    Jun-14-06    
Topic: Good, Outdoor, Strange, Trends and Culture



Pepsi MyDaDaDa Designers Make Site Too Fat For Most

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You know, all you designers really ought to be testing your Flashtastic creations on a "normal" computer with the cache turned off. After all, most people who will visit your site won't have reloaded the thing a million times thereby having it readily and speedily available for viewing. For example, this site for Pepsi called MyDaDaDa which capiltalizes on the song, took agonizingly long to load. And once it did load, it never worked smoothly. Apparently, you can send the song around to your friends, watch ads, put the song and wallpapers on your phone, send a pre-recorded message to a friend, get screensavers and upload your own videos to the site. None of it worked well. Of course, it could just be our crappy laptop. Oh yea, the whole thing wraps itself around the World Cup Football craze.

by Steve Hall    Jun-14-06    
Topic: Bad, Consumer Created, Desktop, Online, Opinion



Folgers 'Tolerate Mornings' Is Intolerable

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Well, we were going to tell you about this Folgers commercial that FishNChimps thought was way too happy happy but the Folgers site took too damn long to load. Humorously, the load page of the site says, "A website dedicated to making your mornings more tolerable. Not this morning, dudes. Speed up your site and then maybe, just maybe we'll watch your stupid spot.

by Steve Hall    Jun-14-06    
Topic: Bad, Commercials, Online



The Coffee Bean Unleashes Mascot Roomate

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We love when we get little tipster emails from people that say things like "Thought you should check out this new site..." and "Viral marketing at its best" because, inevitably, it's not and we relish the opportunity to squat down and dump all over it like a 400 pound slob who's just had an enema. This, unfortunately, is not one of those times. This viral, and we do call it viral because we're sure it's been paid for or influenced by The Coffee Bean, follows the antics of three roommates as they terrorize a fourth who is a mascot called Mr. Ice Blended for West Coast-based The Coffee Bean.

The site, Masot Roomate, has a bunch of videos that show the guys pulling various pranks on the mascot from attacking him on the job, impersonating him, placing his hands down their pants and mascot mascotnapping him. Without fail, all the guys have MySpace profiles which look like they were all recently created and, for the most part, all have the same friends. In another section. Another section of the site, called "5 mascots we wouldn't ever fuck with" explains why the Kool-Ais Man, The Fruit of the Loom Guys, Grimace, McGruff the Crime Dawg and The San Diego Chicken are off limits. Only an unleashed creative type would obsess over these icons and write such lines as, "I spent my formative years with my junk cradled in the safe confines of their white cottony briefs" about the Fruit of the Loom Guys.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-14-06    
Topic: Good, Guerilla, Strange, Viral



Bob Garfield Did Not Explain Word of Mouth

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We'd like to offer an apology to Bob Garfield. In a piece we wrote yesterday about a CoBrandiT video that featured footage of Bob doing an interview with CoBrandiT that included outtakes shot prior to the actual interview, we mis-stated Bob knew he was in on the joke when, in fact, he was not. He had made some comments, in jest, while defining word of mouth prior to the beginning of the actual interview. Bob says CoBrandiT used those comments without his knowledge and he thought those shooting the video worked for WOMMA and not for CoBrandiT. We respectfully apologize. Though, we still think the video was hilarious. Rather than incur further wrath, CoBrandiT has taken the video down and placed an apology in its place. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

by Steve Hall    Jun-13-06    
Topic: Announcements, Industry Events, Word of Mouth



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